I think in my late 20s, I was starting to enter that realm of complacency, which is the most terrifying place I can imagine as an artist. I felt time creeping up on me.
Old age has got to start creeping up on me one day soon, and frankly I'm very scared. I don't want to be old. I've always felt so young. And I want to stay that way.
For me, fear manifests itself in snoozing and inactivity. I just become so sleepy, any time of day, when something needs to be done. I sometimes go days without responding to texts or reading books or being able to process much of anything beyond the sun slowly creeping through my living room windows.
It creeps me out sometimes to think of the person I was. I was a terrible person. I was mean to people.
It always gave me the creeps when I saw performers who desperately wanted the audience to like them. That's not what I'm about.
Facebook creeps me out.
Fame has become this obsession for people, which kind of creeps me out.
In this journey, the fear creeps in from time to time. The hint of that is there because there's an unknown factor to everything. That's true in everyone's life. I don't choose to live there; I let it spark me.
I have to make sure that I don't silence myself about the things that I believe in, because sometimes the fear creeps in of 'What if fewer people watch the show or fewer people hire me because I express my politics?' For me, the commitment is to never be quiet just because I'm in the public eye.
I love YouTube. You can find me there watching cat videos. I even like to watch other people play video games. I know it's a bit creepy, but it's my thing.
My mom is African-American, Native-American, Irish, and Creole, and my father is of Jewish, Russian, and Polish descent. It's made me who I am. Because of my diverse background, I think I can relate to many different people, different stories, and different communities.
I refuse to be one of those artists who, 10 years from now, they're bitter about the rise and the fall of their career. I understand that somewhere there's a peak and a crest for me, and I'm going to enjoy all levels. I'm going to enjoy this ride that I'm on, and when it slows down, that's when it will be time for another phase of my life.
The ladies remember me from 'Falcon Crest,' and the guys remember me from 'Renegade.'
Bob Marley songs are my songs. These are the songs that have been passed on to me. Let me say, I wear my family crest, and I represent my family to the fullest.
I think it's important for me, for my crew and for the audience to bring something new to each show. I have friends who have done the same act, word for word for word, for 20 years. I have a problem with that. I think the audience should see something new in each show.
Many of the crew members I work with and continue to work with were friends or have become close friends, and so we keep working together. And I like casting friends of mine or people I know in parts I know would be perfect for them. I like to bring things and people that mean something to me in to my work.
Let me tell you something: if you're on an island for three and a half months and you're four and a half hours by boat from the nearest store, and there's nobody but 30 crew members on the island, I guarantee that you'd be running around without your clothes on.
I don't think my parents liked me. They put a live teddy bear in my crib.
My folks kicked me out of the crib, so I was homeless, living out the whip.
My mother told me when I was a toddler and in the crib that they would have music playing, and the thing when I lit up was boogie-woogie or something out of the Louie Jordan period of sometimes big bands, and then all kinds of things.
