One of my favorite memories as a kid was when the original 'Secret Wars' came out with the debut of the black costume for Spider-Man. I remember I couldn't wait to get home to read it, and I was like, 'Oh, my God, I've been waiting for this comic to come out. I hope, God forbid, nothing happens to me before I get home to read it.'

Police officers see everything, and they experience everything, and they don't always act correctly.

When you're writing about cops from the perspective of cops, that level of sarcasm about their job and how they treat people will color the writing to a certain extent.

The only thing police patrol cops - in certain situations - are expert at is spotting anomalies. When you are a black person that is driving in a place that you stick out, that's all they're going to see.

The thing that all police officers decide when they wake up in the morning is that they're going home.

I think the fact that 'Black Lightning,' 'Luke Cage' and 'Black Panther' have each made noise in their own way will only lead to different superheroes and different genres.

The Caribbean is such a rich place, and Jamaica, personally, is one of my favorite places in the world. I've been lucky to, on various projects, to have spent a lot of time down there.

Netflix likes critical attention, and they like their analytics.

I come from hip-hop - meaning that I don't mind if you come at me. In fact, I prefer it. But I prefer that you come at the show with credible critique.

Because I'm a former critic, I view criticism differently than most do. I can take criticism, but if you're going to eviscerate us, be specific.

Sometimes you have to take the risk that somebody will consider what you're making is noise, but if you don't try it, then nothing will move forward. I'd rather people hate something than just go 'meh.'

You have to tell a super story that has some fantastical element, but the human element is what's going to keep people watching.

If a superhero is a community superhero, then is he going to protect his community by controlling everything? If he decides to control crime, does that make him a crime boss? Does that make him a criminal?

In the imagination, Harlem will always be the spiritual capital of black excellence in America.

I really think that Steven Caple, Jr. is going to be a great addition to the 'Rocky' director pantheon.

Really, the arc for the first season of 'Luke Cage' is 'hero.' How does one become a hero? What does one feel about being a hero? How does one live their life and eventually go through the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross stages of grief until the acceptance is, 'Fine, I'm a hero.' This is what it is.

When you're a black superhero, you can't erase the notion that you're black. If you're black, living in the community, and you want to change things, there are going to be things that happen. That's true of anybody. I mean, you could use celebrity as a similar metaphor.

What Peter Jackson proved with 'Lord Of The Rings' movies is that you could make various changes, and you could pull things around, but as long as it was in the spirit of the storytelling, and because he made The Shire so real, the fans forgave him for the changes.

'Southland' was really where I learned so much about drama.

It's better to write a pilot rather than write a spec show. In some cases, you have to do both, but more often, writing a pilot and having an original voice is more important.

I can't turn hip-hop off, just like I can't turn comic books off. It blends into everything for me.

Harlem has always been the nexus of music, politics, culture, criminal figures.

People underestimate the complexity of comic books.

When I was a critic, I reviewed Public Enemy's 'Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age' - this is back in '94 - and I called it a 'Dante-esque spiral of the hip-hop hell.' I idolized Chuck D, but I just hated that record, and I did not hold back. Chuck didn't freeze me out. Every time I met Chuck, he always treated me with the utmost respect.

Some people, when they get criticism, they shy away from it.

For me, I was never really obsessed with Luke Cage. My obsession was Wolverine.

For 'Luke Cage,' of course, I was familiar with Power Man and Iron Fist. I read the comics. That was really more stuff that you read for fun. It wasn't that you read either of those comics for profound moments, although they have profound moments.

With 'Luke Cage,' we all, as a collective wanted to tell the truest story that we could but, at the same time, also be very true to the comic book genre.

I'm not ashamed of comic books. You have some people that are like, 'We're trying to elevate comic books.' Comic books have always told great dramatic stories.

There aren't a lot of African-American superheroes. I've been reading comics since I was eight or nine years old. Luke Cage stood out.

Muhammed Ali is my favorite boxer, and the reason that I love Ali is because he's not undefeated. It's because of the fact that he risked it all at times and lost - but then came back.

'Clockers' - as much as it is a very focused crime drama, it sprawls.

The thing about Luke Cage that makes him different is - on the surface is he's a hero for hire; Luke Cage wants to get paid. Luke Cage in the comic books is like, 'I'm doing this stuff. It's all well and good, but I gotta make a dollar.'

Bushmaster was such a great adversary, and Mustafa Shakir, just the way that he embodies him in terms of the power of the voice, the stillness, and then, at the same time, when they do get after it, when he does fight, just how kinetic he was. He just brought a great dynamic and being able to explore his history in making the character Jamaican.

I don't see female characters as different or inferior to male characters.

In reality, black women, women of color, are powerful, bold, dynamic, and self-assured, so there's no reason their TV counterparts shouldn't be as such.

Rosario Dawson is such a resourceful, intelligent actress that you can do anything with her.

The only thing that's different about doing a superhero show is that you can have your hero do things that a normal cop in a procedural can't do. But the structure of the storytelling is universal.

I was a huge fan of comics: not necessarily 'Luke Cage.' I was more of an 'X-Men' head. I was always more Chris Claremont, Frank Miller, John Byrne.

I always respected Luke Cage and thought that he was interesting, and I really liked what Brian Michael Bendis did in his update of the character in 'Alias,' the comic.

My private joke about 'Luke Cage' is that it's a bulletproof version of 'Lemonade,' and that, essentially, it's a concept album that has a video component.

I wanted Season 2 of Luke Cage to be Ice Cube's 'Death Certificate,' or Fugees' 'The Score,' or Public Enemy's 'It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,' or my favorite, 'The Low End Theory' by A Tribe Called Quest.

When I was a journalist, I didn't care how many people talked to Ice Cube before I talked Ice Cube. I just knew that when I talked to Ice Cube, it was going to be different than what anybody else had done, and it was the same with any group.

Spike Lee is one of my biggest influences. What I love about Spike, other than he's just a fun guy to hang around, is that Spike is fearless. As much as people talk about him being politically outspoken, let's not forget that he's one of the best screenwriters, ever, in addition to being a visual master.

The thing is, so much of the African American experience is about the redefinition of roots because of slavery. We were uprooted, and there's so much about our whole legacy that was stolen and that we lost in the Transatlantic slave trade that we'll never find out.

When you're dealing with African Americans, family is everything. Because we spend so much time talking about how one treats one's family. Telling a black person that you haven't talked to your mother in a week is probably different than it is with other races because people will look at you different.

I will always get a certain thrill of watching bullets bounce off Luke Cage.

Bob Marley was always ready to deal with the politics of what was happening in the world but, at the same time, not lose sight of the fact that he's a musician.

If there's one thing that I've learned from both Spike Lee and Tarantino, it's that you can wear your influences on your sleeve but at the same time invoke new energy and new flavor.

This is a country that I love and that I believe in, but at the same time also believe that you should, as a part of this country, have the right to be able to talk very clearly about the issues that are happening, going on.