There's something about being onstage, man. No matter what age I am or where I'm going, theater will constantly be the thing that accepts me and embraces me.

You can put Trump in the White House, but you need to prepare for a revolt because I'm going nuts.

My sisters were teenagers when I was born, so the last thing they wanted was a little nappy-headed boy running around. I would imitate them or copy things off TV.

At Morehouse, I found myself and my voice, and I didn't want to lose that at Yale.

Atlanta has become and has always been a place where you create your own universe.

I was born in Fayetteville, North Carolina, which is where J. Cole is from. I went up to Washington, D.C., where my mother moved, to stay with her, and then moved back to North Carolina to finish junior high and high school.

My father was retired military, and my mother was an educator. She was incredibly creative. I used to love going to her school during the summer and helping her decorate her classroom. I would draw Mickey Mouse, Donald Duck. She was a sixth grade teacher. She and my father are the ones that got me into my love of music.

I learned everything I know about music from my parents and my sisters.

Acting really started for me because I was in a house full of adults. They never shielded their lives from me. They were adults going through this world doing what they had to do. I used to like to watch them and imitate them. They all have their own distinct personalities; even though they're family, we couldn't be more different people.

I was working with the likes of Steve McQueen, Matthew McConaughey, Viola Davis, just running the gamut.

There's no redemption in being robbed. Yeah, maybe you can replace that thing, but it will never be the way it was when you got it the first time. It'll never have the same weight and preciousness again.

I say this all the time: All I know is I know nothing at all.

My school had the dopest arts program - the dopest show choir, the dopest marching band. I couldn't sing or play an instrument a lick, but I was just going to fake it till I make it.

Music has always been a part of my life, and it helps me a lot because it speaks for me when I can't speak for myself.

I've discovered people in my lifetime who are like, 'I always wanted to sing but... ' It's like, 'Well then, did you try?' My thing was always not caring about failure.

When people ask me, 'Are you a singer?' I say, 'No, I'm not a 'singer' - but I love the craft of singing,' going in and finding out what that means or why the hell I'm singing in the first place. My thing is really the craft of it.

You see the Paper Bois - easy. Personas are easy to touch and see and digest. But you don't get the chance to really see who the Alfreds are. I want to make sure I did that with him.

I went to college in Atlanta, so I know that city.

The rap scene is so unique. Every rapper has to bring their own thing.

I'm a big guy: I look like a linebacker, you know? But no one cares, really, that I'm educated. I have a copy of 'Fire Next Time' by James Baldwin in my bag. I have an Ibsen play in there, too. I have to walk through this world with that duality all the time, that I live in two different worlds.

I discovered that acting gave me this spark, this thing. Honestly, it was a way to survive.

Hip-hop is not about pretense. You can be missing an eye; you can have an ice-cream cone in your face; you can run around with Bantu knots; you can decide to wear gold, all everything. It's not about how you look - it's about what you say. It's about what message you're getting across.

The projects that I've been fortunate enough to do are all projects where I followed my heart. I didn't follow the money or the names. It's all about reflecting my life and my art.

Life should be art, right?

You play the honesty of the characters and show a side of them that people can relate to and want to get to know.

I was in a musical for a while, and I sing around the house all the time, but I don't ever think of myself as a singer.

If you are conscious and really want change in this world, and you don't vote, then what was all the fighting for? All the things our parents and our parents' parents fought for?

I hope Paper Boi runs for president. I hope he does. Governor, mayor, senator, I hope he does it all. You better believe it.

Sometimes, you need someone to believe in you when you don't believe in yourself.

Being in a club - clubs are, like, not my favorite thing.

I was in show choir in high school.

Atlanta's a great city to cultivate your own thing - from fashion to music to food.

I think that Atlanta has this huge well of black culture and openness to share all the things that we have made there.

Theater's literally where I started.

In my household growing up in Fayetteville, N.C., music was the great communicator between my parents and me.

My mother had a gorgeous singing voice, and she'd play these amazing vinyls. My favorite was 'But Not for Me,' on the 1954 album 'Chet Baker Sings.'

After my mother and father separated when I was 5, my mother moved to Washington, D.C., and my father remained in North Carolina. Later, I moved to New York and would often drive down to D.C. to see her. We'd ride around together talking and listening to music.

My mom loved road trips, and sometimes we'd drive down to North Carolina. Though my parents were separated, she wanted me to stay connected with my dad.

Yale was one of the best moments in my life - also one of the hardest. I learned about community.

The most important thing I feel in the acting profession is to create a community that reflects you back to you.

What does it serve any studio to not reflect the lives of people who are giving you money, who are crying out to you, 'Hey, please tell our stories.'

I hope that there's a little black boy somewhere in Montana that never thought that he would see a reflection of himself, and he turns on the television, like, 'Oh my God, thank you.'

Really trying to find the people who really ride for you and are down for you, that's hard.

Every time you get in front of the lights and the cameras and you think, 'Okay, well, we've done this before, but we have to do it again? Oh, we're doing it again? We're doing it again?' It's so gratifying, but I don't think I'll ever get used to it. I hope I won't.

TV can be a thread between all of us, and it can be a powerful tool to examine life and love and what we all have in common as humans.

I couldn't believe there was going to be a show called 'Atlanta,' because that's my favorite city in the country. It's where I went to college. I have so many great friends that live there. It's where I discovered that I wanted to be an artist.

I dare somebody to go to Atlanta and not have a good time.

I am the product of those who believed in me.

Atlanta's the hub of black culture, and it's OK to be you there - it's the city that really shaped me to be who I am.

I really love Instagram for the artwork.