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

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

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 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.

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

Life should be art, right?

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.

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.

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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

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

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

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 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.