Being an emcee onstage is mostly about crowd control, about monitoring energy levels.

I have a recognizable silhouette.

Acting is about finding truth and finding the way to convey the truth.

I think people understand I'm not actually the real Thomas Jefferson.

As more doors open for me, I try to always bring people who I know through.

If a project feels good to you, say yes. And do it with everything that you have and hope that the outcome is good.

I felt so loved and taken care of, and that's a huge part of the reason I'm able to do what I do.

I can jump really high, yeah. I'm proud of that. I'll take it.

I feel like, anytime I'm onstage, I tend to feel very connected with people in the audience or with the sort of heartbeat or tempo of the audience.

I was really aware, even while it was happening, that the discovery of arts education in my life sort of saved my life.

The reason you write something that is exciting and visceral is to force people to hear what you have to say, especially if you're in any kind of marginalized community where people don't want to listen. You have to come up with tricks to make them listen.

As a kid, you don't have a ton of spaces where you are honored, where what you think is honored and what you say is revered.

At some point, I'll do more McDonald's commercials if I have to.

I have all of Kendrick Lamar on vinyl.

I think this idea of a big break is a lie.

I get excited to create things that don't exist in the same world as 'Hamilton' because that world is really well done and doesn't need me to inform it anymore.

That's the great thing about how 'SVU' works. They work with so many Broadway actors, they are very used to getting us out in time for the show.

I warm up a lot harder for a Clipping show than I ever did for 'Hamilton.'

Broadway was weird.

I've been sort of gentrification-obsessed. Right before I left Oakland in 2012, I was feeling it. Now I go back sporadically, and the change is drastic.

We're very used to seeing a huge diversity of white people. You never just expect two white people on TV to feel the same way.

Being multiracial has allowed me to feel comfortable walking in all different circles.

If you do enough rap shows, you get a pretty good sense of an audience. You start to develop this sense of what a feeling of a room or a group is.

My favorite Prince album is 'Sign o' the Times.'

Daveed Diggs is a very nervous person.

I was so stressed, man. When I was 17, I was so worried about what the hell was going to happen.

It's funny because as a rapper, there is - and this is something that Clipping challenges all the time - there is this idea about authenticity as a rapper, in the fact that you rap things that are yours. That's not what doing a play is. You're interpreting somebody else's words.

What writing a poem really does - and what figuring how to perform effectively really does - is forces people to listen to you. It frames your thoughts in such a way that grabs people's attentions and forces them to hear the things that you're actually saying.

The fact that I got to do the 'Hamilton' BET Cypher is a totally crazy thing because I've watched the BET Cyphers since it started. I've seen every one. I study them. Because I'm a rapper. It's what you do.

My mom is a white Jewish lady, and my dad is black. The cultures never seemed separate - I had a lot of mixed friends. When I was young, I identified with being Jewish, but I embraced my dad's side, too.

My parents are not together, but they were both always around.

That's the great thing about being a teenager. You think you're a genius.

The act of being nice to somebody at Starbucks is actually a huge thing. It's a real change you can effect in somebody's life every day.

Neither of my parents live in Oakland anymore. They both got priced out.

Everybody from the Bay has a superiority complex because we're dope.

I liked being on stage because it gave me a reason to be around people. The other great thing about acting is it allows you to imagine circumstances different from your own. I was a poor Bay Area kid getting to pretend to be a Russian aristocrat.

To walk into a casting room full of people who look like you is a crazy thing. What is the thing that necessitates all of us having the exact same shade of skin and having the same hair? What about this deodorant commercial needs that?

Oftentimes, it feels like we spend so much of our life waiting to make art, waiting for somebody to let us do something. You don't really have to do that. You can make it all the time. And 99 percent of the time, it's not going to be a big deal on a global scale. But 100 percent of the time, it's going to make you feel amazing.

Clipping is a very specific, concept-y thing. We have all these rules: we don't sample drums. We create all our own sounds. I don't speak in the first person. We come from a background of experimental music like John Cage... Philip Glass.

Writing rap songs is about flow, about one word blending seamlessly into the next and creating a thing that is possible to perform in a way that feels natural.

The tricky thing about fast raps is not really the delivery of them; it's the writing of them, with consonants close enough together that you don't trip up over them.

Being with a bunch of people who never take a day off means that you're not taking a day off.

The fact that rap has a strict meter and stays to a click means that you have to make your thoughts concise.

I majored in theater. I did plays. But musicals were not my thing.

To be rapping in a musical on Broadway is just - that sentence doesn't make any sense in my brain.

I have this thing. I can rap really fast. I can rap really, really fast. It's a thing I'm good at and I've trained myself to do; it's a thing I do in the Bay Area.

I didn't aspire to be on Broadway.

I think it's important that your work is in conversation with artists in your community.

I'm aware that not everybody gets that feeling of ease walking through the world that I have.

I make the energy to go out. You can't let the Broadway schedule run you.