I never made "feminist art," and if I did it was not deliberate.
Gregory Hines was the most talented man I've ever met or seen. Gregory Hines is one of those people that whenever he talked to you, you felt like you were the center of the universe.
The real question is, Why do you feel as though that's emasculating? A man can't have a conflict? When you try to do art, it's how it lands on people, and hopefully some people will see it the way that I saw it, which is all of these awful choices come from the place of a man who's damaged.
Art imitating life and life imitating art, and it's beyond the job - it will always be a marked period in my life.
We don't eat to live, we live to eat because that's a part of the creativity of the day.
The whole idea of jazz came about was the interpretation of the human dialogue, trading fours. When someone's soloing and someone picks up the solo and plays it back at 'em, it was the imitation of the human dialogue. It was how people spoke, through music.
Culture is the intersection between people and dealing with the journey of life itself. How to deal with life, how a people deals with life is literally manifested in its culture, in its food, in its music, in its art, in the way you dance, the way you communicate.
There is no excuse for a billion dollar industry to have somebody who's pushing papers on an administrative level - which is still very important in terms of getting projects done - it's imbalanced and completely illogical and example of how badly this art form has been rapped. . . for them niggas to have health care benefits but for themselves to share in no part to that? It's very telling about the climate of the music industry.
Success is always dangerous. It can make an asshole out of anybody.
Nothing is as hard as it looks; everything is more rewarding than you expect; and if anything can go right it will and at the best possible moment.
Chemistry ought to be not for chemists alone.