If you look around Brazil you see pregnant women everywhere. Here you don't see that as much. There the only thing they do is babies, babies, babies! Especially the poor families.
The universe lies before you on the floor, in the air, in the mysterious bodies of your dancers, in your mind. From this voyage no one returns poor or weary.
Dealers claim that women artists are not as salable as men, that they are a poor investment. We know that there are few women art collectors, a fact which may have an impact on the market.
I am the son of poor peasants who came at a very young age to live in Algeria. I only recently saw the place where they were born, near the city of Marrakech.
Besides being a prime cause of poor economic growth, poor governance breeds corruption, which cripples investment, wastes resources, and diminishes confidence.
Not only was I the only black kid and the only poor kid, but my parents were transcendental meditation devotees, and I live in an ashram for a good portion of my childhood.
I think people assume that because I talk the way that I talk that I grew up with money, and then I've had to say, 'No, I grew up poor.' And then I was like, 'Why do I have to play this game where the only black experience that's authentic is the one where you grew up in poverty?' I mean, it's ridiculous.
We were poor. My mother got our clothes out of the free box at the church, you know? So much of when you're a kid is about relating about what you watch on TV. And who's got these cooler shoes, and 'Let's trade lunches.' And I was just like, 'I don't have a television. I have a rock and a piece of tofu.'
I didn't have the easiest time growing up; it's no secret. We were just poor.
Everything I was told should be my greatest insecurities and weaknesses, everything that I've been labeled - short, nerdy, skinny, weak, impulsive, ugly, tomboy, poor, rebel, loud, freak, crazy - turned out to be my greatest strengths. I didn't become successful in spite of them. I became successful because of them.
