You need to put your head down and... try not to lose hope.
— Leslie Odom, Jr.
I'm an artist, and I like art that gets people talking, good or bad. Criticism is good, too.
We're reminded yet again: we are stronger, we are smarter, we have more fun when we include each other - when we include as many perspectives as possible.
You gotta prove yourself. I'm not above that. I will never be above that. Bring it!
I haven't had a chance to decorate my dressing room yet, but I have these pictures of myself as a kid that I want to put up because I said, 'I really want to make sure that I take that kid with me on this journey.' I want him to experience this.
I can only imagine what the show would have meant to me as a 16- or 17-year-old. I know what 'Rent' meant to me in my life, how that show changed the course of my life, and we can only hope that 'Hamilton' will have the same effect on a few kids.
I've dedicated more than 15 years to this theater and television thing; I want to spend the next 10, 15 years or so devoted to music.
My dad was an early hip-hop fan.
You gotta love this thing. Whatever you choose to pursue - medicine, law, writing, you have to love it. You study it, you eat it, you drink it, you try it, you do it, you love it in every way.
I've been in a long-term relationship, and I'll tell you, it's never boring! People trying to merge their lives together always run into challenges.
I think that the best songs to sing are songs that you love, because you sing them with love when you love them.
I remember when I was in 'Rent,' Daphne Rubin-Vega threw a party. At the time, she had a loft in TriBeCa, and the elevator opened right into her apartment. I was like, 'I've never seen anything like that.' I didn't know it was possible.
I'm in no way running from 'Hamilton' or its success or these beautiful songs that I've been blessed to be able to be the one to introduce them. I certainly won't be the last to sing them, but to be the first, I feel very lucky.
I've realized along the way that a lot of things that I do as a performer are about waiting for somebody to write something for me or develop something for me, but music, music was the thing that I don't have to wait for anybody's permission to do.
You must be an artist and a citizen of the world. You must speak to this stuff that's happening. You must do what you can to shine a light on it, help people through it.
I've been fortunate in my life. It hasn't been easy, but there has been a focus on the positive, and it has reverberated. Eventually, the outlook mirrors itself back to you in the friends you have, in the partner that you choose.
'Hamilton' has restored my faith in theater.
What is the future going to say about us now? What are our kids going to look at us and say, 'How could you not stop that person from getting into power? How could you not stop that environmental disaster that you saw coming a mile away?'
I'm glad things worked out the way they worked out.
I haven't gotten hundreds of jobs that I've auditioned for.
I'm so excited about my new partnership with the talented and motivated team at S-Curve Records!
There are certainly people who have committed horrific, evil acts in the history of humanity. I don't think Aaron Burr's one of them.
I kind of think we sort of subconsciously draw things into our lives, whatever we're trying to work through.
I remember Ella Fitzgerald sort of coming into my life like a bolt of lightning - like, what is that? It was one of the purest examples of God in art that I'd ever seen.
It's still a political statement to stand on stage as a person of color and be excellent. We still need those images to combat the narrative we're often fed - as someone innately inferior or inexorably linked with lack.
People are coming to you at their most vulnerable; they're showing you the parts of themselves that they're afraid to show: the parts that they're not so sure about, not so secure in. And so it's a really holy profession I think, teaching. If you do it right, it can change somebody's life.
Donny Hathaway's 'For All We Know' is the song that I've sung the longest. It is a beautiful song about living in the moment and appreciating this very second. That is the song I did for my 'Rent' audition.
As an artist, I'm very used to waking up and sort of not knowing what my day's going to be and not knowing where my next paycheck is going to come from.
I started out with this 'La Boheme' fantasy, but as you get older, the 'La Boheme' fantasy becomes less sexy, believe me.
The record company felt wisely that we should get something out before I left 'Hamilton' or around awards time, and that deadline was not easy.
I know what not being able to pay your bills feels like real well... I know that way better than a room full of beautiful people and Tony awards and Grammy awards.
It's not about doing something that's as big as 'Hamilton.' That may never happen again, and that's okay.
I grew up in the Canaan Baptist Church.
'Rent' opened up my heart, my senses. I was never the same. I hadn't been back in that place in the same way since. 'Hamilton' put me back in that place.
I have to remind myself that it may never be this good again.
What's a better foundation for drama? You have power, you have ambition, you have sex... that's the stuff of drama.
What a casting director does is they're a connector.
They're people who had flaws and who had affairs and had sex and had scandals, and very rarely do we look at the totality of our heroes' lives.
The bad guys have way more fun, in my opinion. 'Bad guys' in quotes.
I don't want to leave anything offstage.
We didn't go to Broadway musicals when I was growing up; it was too expensive.
I grew up in Philadelphia in a time where we took it for granted that we were supposed to be young and gifted and black. It was a culture of excellence - and all my friends were more talented than I was.
The time I spent in New York when I was 17 gave me the confidence to pursue my dreams with my whole heart.
There's this Frank Wildhorn tune 'Sarah' - it's not a widely known tune, but it's my favorite song to sing.
There was a lot of the 'Hamilton' experience that was like a locomotive. It was a hurricane, so the apartment often looked like a hurricane. There were clothes and shoes all over. We were getting more things in than we had room for. We had to figure out how to make space for all the blessings and goodness coming toward us.
I'm the nap champion.
To get even realer with you for a second, as a black actor, as a performer of color, I don't know how many more roles like Aaron Burr are gonna come along for me.
I know what feeling broke feels like real well. I know that real well.
My dad was always in sales. My mom had a heart for the ages. Worked in recreation, doing rehabilitation in nursing homes. Very nice, practical folks who were very proud of me but had no inclination toward the stage in any way.
I wanted to make an album that was hopeful and encouraging and inspiring. That was the goal.
