I know that in my past I was young and irresponsible - but that's what growing up is. You learn from your mistakes.

I think my biggest focus for myself is learning how to continue to get through the trauma that my father has caused in my life.

I want to give back. I want to do all the things that will make me feel fulfilled. But whenever I do those things, people think it's a press stunt or something.

My little sister Aliana's opinions are the most important to me. She says, 'I want to look like you, you're so pretty!' But she is very beautiful and so she is trouble in the making! She wants to do what I do. I'm like her second mother and I am very protective of her.

I think it's more fun to grow to love characters who are flawed than it is to present perfect characters. Perfect characters aren't very funny. Certainly my friends are a strange, intense bunch of people, and people's families drive them crazy, but challenging relationships are always more rewarding.

It's a spirit that was given me and the relationships and meeting all these great people, Duke Ellington, Louis Armstrong; through Max I met a lot of people too. My first album was with Benny Carter.

I am more than a black guy. I am a person, I'm storyteller, I'm a son, I'm a friend, so I am all those things, so it is frustrating, to a degree, to be limited by other people's perceptions of me, but at the same time, it is true that I am a black guy, and, you know, it's like I'm rooted in but not bound by.

There's people who watch shows while they're preparing their dinners, and they don't want to focus, and they don't want to be challenged, and whatever. And then there's people who want to really sit down and get into a character in a world, and feel like they're expanding, or they have complex relationships, or whatever.