I've always wanted to make a career in the arts, and I think that my only hope at doing that is to make it more about the work.
My work in the theater began to shift more towards young audience type of work and education programs for children, arts education programs.
With my ministry of light, part of what I do is work on the California Alliance For Arts Education.
I always believed that my work should be unfinished in the sense that I encourage people to add their creativity to it, either conceptually or physically. Back in the 1960s, I was calling for 'Unfinished Music,' number one, and number two, with my artwork - I was taking unfinished work into the gallery. And that's how I was looking at it.
You should create a work that is so valuable it might eventually sell at a high price, but you've got to concentrate on how you create that artwork.
I think I managed to trick people a little bit into thinking I'm more arty by making creative, artistic, visual work and applying it to commercial music. Maybe. I don't know.
Well, I certainly was exposed to and learned to appreciate the work of great directors early on. As a kid, my mother used to take me to see really interesting arty films in Los Angeles.
What I respect as far as in myself and in others is the spirit of just doing it. For better or worse, it may work and it may not, but I'm going to go for it. Ultimately I probably prefer to be respected for that than whether it works out or not, either winning or losing.
I think it's very important for hip-hop, when an artist reaches a certain level, to ascend to executive work.
The slugs are ascending this steep city staircase that leads up to a huge Catholic church, essentially signifying their slow crawl towards death. The work reminds us of religion, mortality, natural decay, and the slow suffocation of commercialized societies.
How important it is to ascertain the will of God, before we undertake anything, because we are then not only blessed in our own souls, but also the work of our hands will prosper.
I love my work with a frenetic and perverse love, as an ascetic loves the hair shirt which scratches his belly.
Therefore, in the course of the work I have followed this plan: I describe in the first book all the positions of the orbits together with the movements which I ascribe to the Earth, in order that this book might contain, as it were, the general scheme of the universe.
Given the scale of trauma caused by the genocide, Rwanda has indicated that however thin the hope of a community can be, a hero always emerges. Although no one can dare claim that it is now a perfect state, and that no more work is needed, Rwanda has risen from the ashes as a model or truth and reconciliation.
I think women think I'm inspirational because I'm unapologetic. I have cellulite. I have back fat. I've got a thick stomach. But I work my body like I don't because I don't know any other body. I don't know how to feel thin. I just know how to feel like Ashley.
The influence of the Shaw Brothers films on my work has been profound. In addition to the richness of Asian culture, we at Wu-Tang were fascinated with the struggles between the oppressed Chinese villagers and the repressive Manchu authority and how it mirrored our own experiences growing up as black kids in America's inner cities.
Some people see things that are and ask, Why? Some people dream of things that never were and ask, Why not? Some people have to go to work and don't have time for all that.
Try to be one of the first people in here, work your butt off in the weight room, asking questions, try to prepare yourself like a pro, like a vet. Stuff like that is what sits well with your team.
At 'Vogue,' I was responsible for a lot of production work, and production work is highly detailed, and you have to be very resourceful to fit a square peg into a round hole. I learned to push the envelope when it comes to asking questions or making requests.
I won't call my work entertainment. It's exploring. It's asking questions of people, constantly. 'How much do you feel? How much do you know? Are you aware of this? Can you cope with this?' A good movie will ask you questions you don't already know the answers to. Why would I want to make a film about something I already understand?
