Typically, my advice to young artists is not to wait for someone to allow you to do the thing. Just do the thing, and they'll catch up.
— Daveed Diggs
I've always been a fan of 'Black-ish.'
I'm an artist, so days don't start on any regular time.
I've always been very supported. I've never really been sad. I've just been broke. They are very different things.
I get to say 'no' to a lot of things. That, for an artist, is crazy.
I call myself a nerd all the time.
That's what hip-hop is - it's about meeting the music where you are, and then you add on top of that. It's about coming at it with your full self.
Some people get a Broadway show, and that's their end game, and they want to sit there for as long as possible. And some people have other things they want to do with their life.
There's a lot of spaces that care about what kids are buying. There are a lot of spaces that care about what kids are watching. But there aren't a lot of spaces that care about what kids are saying.
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.
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.
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.
Writing is writing. It is all about telling stories, and I've been doing that for so long, in all realms, that it all feels like the same thing to me anyway.
I think rappers spend a lot of time trying to figure out what is new. 'How can I say this in a way that no one has ever said it before?'
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.
There's no reason for somebody who's good at writing rap to be good at freestyling. They're different parts of your brain. You can develop both skills. I'm a much better writer.
I'm aware that not everybody gets that feeling of ease walking through the world that I have.
Learning how to get a point across is pretty useful in any situation.
Broadway was weird.
Using something that is really painful, generally, as the percussive element for a beat, I think is cool.
All the way on the West Coast, never having seen a Broadway show, it was like, 'They don't want me. There's nothing there for me.' I'd come to New York a lot and never even tried to see a Broadway show. There was no reason for me to do that.
Hip-hop was indifferent to Broadway. We didn't need Broadway, but I think Broadway needed hip-hop.
I miss doing a straight play.
There's this thing about authenticity when you rap, right? Whether or not it's real, it has to feel real.
I love that 'Black-ish' is a pretty traditional sitcom, structurally. It functions like the sitcoms from the '80s and '90s that I grew up with.
TV is really about keeping things fresh and making sure you have the most energy possible for these very short spurts of time.
That's the great thing about being a teenager. You think you're a genius.
I sort of have this feeling about change in general. We can make baby steps on a macro level. We can try to shift policy, voting and changing who's in office. But we can make huge, sweeping changes on a personal level and in your immediate circle, or just the people around you.
It wasn't until I got out in the world and started worked professionally when I realized that the people I admired were the ones who had taken the little snippets of what they learned that worked for them - and strung them together in their own technique.
Recording vocals has the same kind of physical demands as you experience a lot in theater work.
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.
As a kid, I was very shy.
I have all of Kendrick Lamar on vinyl.
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.
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.
History is about who tells it.
I've always gravitated toward technical music in general. I love jazz fusion.
I didn't know a single musical soundtrack, really, growing up. Nobody listened to musicals. That wasn't a thing I did.
Everybody from the Bay has a superiority complex because we're dope.
I warm up a lot harder for a Clipping show than I ever did for 'Hamilton.'
The way we make history exciting to learn about is by breaking down the barriers that are already set up between these people.
Being on stage, I know my function. I just do the thing.
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.
College was the first time I felt I really had to choose who my friends were.
As more doors open for me, I try to always bring people who I know through.
I'm from the Bay Area, so I know a lot about granola.
Often, the people I'm working with on music are separate from the rest of my life.
I went to Hebrew school but opted out of a bar mitzvah.
I'm fascinated with the regionality of rap music.
I make the energy to go out. You can't let the Broadway schedule run you.
