There are huge divorces and divides and chasms in black America between the have-gots and the have-nots, between the monied and the poor, between the educated and the non-educated. And there are huge and growing chasms daily. And I want to say that it's not simply about generation. It's about genre.

Hip hop music is important precisely because it sheds light on contemporary politics, history, and race. At its best, hip hop gives voice to marginal black youth we are not used to hearing from on such topics.

It is bad enough to be white and poor; it is worse still to be black, or brown, and female, and young, and poor. Simply said, race makes class hurt more.

I think public intellectuals have a responsibility - to be self-critical on the one hand, to do serious, nuanced work rigorously executed; but to also be able to get off those perches and out of those ivory towers and speak to the real people who make decisions; to speak truth to power and the powerless with lucidity and eloquence.

I love the spiritual side of religion, but the church, for me, is a place where I feel very repressed.

A demon, in a way, is a test of your faith. Because if you're doing God's work, there's no reason for any demon to do anything to you.

Every musician that dies is the greatest ever when they die. I never heard a David Bowie record in my life. But for whatever reason, he's one of the greatest of all time now. You know why? 'Cause he's dead.

I will stay faithful to what God has called me to do all the days of my life, and I don't try to figure it out.