My family moved - first to Washington, D.C., and then, in the spring of 1975, to Lebanon, where my father worked as a diplomat at the American embassy. My parents were enthusiastic about the move, so my older brother and I felt like we were off to some place kind of cool.
Playing and singing at the same time is pretty cool, but sometimes it's difficult to know when you can just really let go a bit because you've got to get back to bloody microphone and sing some stuff.
If a musician wants to be an actor, everyone thinks that's pretty cool. But if an actor wants to play a song, even if they've been doing it for 40 years, that's bad news.
Jazz took too much discipline. You have to come in at the right place, which is different than me singing the blues, where I can sing, 'Oh, baby,' if there's a pause in the melody. With jazz, you better leave that space open, or put in something real cool.
It's always cool to meet people who can do things that you have no capacity to do.
I'd like to see a world free of strife, stress, pain, hunger, war - a cool place where everyone could live.
It's cool to play a sinister bad guy who also has a human side.
Sitting at the table during Color Purple and looking up and suddenly realizing I was acting in front of Steven Spielberg, was pretty cool. It was pretty good.
Growing up, politics never trickled down to the areas we come from. But people from Obama's camp, and Obama himself, reached out to me and asked for my help on the campaign. We've sat and had dinner, and we've spoken on the phone. He's a very sharp guy. Very charming. Very cool.
You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?