I think three or four years ago, people would have said my biggest weakness was that sometimes I was awkward on television, with my stammer, but I think they'd say that much less now.
Before all this happened, I always used to see my stammer as being a negative, all my life, but then when I went on 'Pop Idol,' and the first time I saw it on television, it was really, really bad, but also it made me stand out; it made people remember me. So for the first time in my life, it worked to my advantage.
I think adidas really understands that it's cool to be in business with the right people. It really feels like a bunch of creative minds rather than some rap guys stamping their names on a sneaker. We're arguing over shoes, ideas, and everything - it's like a tug of war.
The racism I am really interested in stamping out is in everyday life. Joe Bloggs, who nobody knows, walks down the street and gets racially abused. He goes into a shop and people think he is going to steal something. He cannot get a job.
Hopefully, people will look at our stance on privacy in general and know that we're not trying to operate outside of a fairly distinct line that we're drawing. I hope that people trust us to do the right thing there.
So many people, you know, they're just worried about, you can't say something bad about Obama, not because you actually have a strong stance against his platform, but because that makes you a racist.
Some people say that given the government's firm stance against genuine universal suffrage, our demands are impossible to achieve. But I believe activism is about making the impossible possible.
I want to stand for something, and it's probably going to be something that some people stand against.
If people are not listening to you as individuals, it's always good to get together and make a stand for something.
If you stand for something, that means there are going to be people who support you and people who don't support you.
If you stand for something you will have people for you and people against you. But if you stand for nothing you will have nobody for you and nobody against you.
When you look at some of the greatest people and players in the world they all stand for something outside their working lives.
Comedy doesn't really matter that much; I know that. I treat it like an adult - I don't treat it like a child or a god, which some people do. This might just be in America, but 'stand-up comedy' is something very particular that I don't particularly relate to.
Did you know I started out as a stand-up comic? People don't believe me when I tell them. That's how I saw myself, in comedy.
Being a stand-up comic, this isn't a stepping-stone for me; it's what I do, and this is what I'm always going to do. And even if I do a TV show, the only reasons to do a TV show is to get more people to know me to come out to my stand-up shows.
I don't see myself as a stand-up comic doing cynical, mean-spirited or disrespectful stuff. I'm very aware that I don't like to disrespect people too much.
We live in a society of victimization, where people are much more comfortable being victimized than actually standing up for themselves.
I care more about the country than what happens to me. But we can't allow the law to become a political weapon or agree to scare people away from standing up for their rights, no matter how good the deal. I'm not going to be part of that.
2014 was a year of intense social upheaval. In truth, the same could be said for most every year. There is no standstill in a world filled with so many people, scrambling for so much.
Then, with lots of people doing that without ever looking over their shoulders to see how they were affecting anybody else, it couldn't work, and it didn't work, and it just came to a standstill.
