My dad loved black singers. So listening to New Orleans music eventually I wanted to play an instrument.

My dad worked two jobs and moved us to the suburbs and just being a black person I went through a lot of racism and being called names and being bullied every single day. And it was hard. I didn't have any friends.

There is no glory in war yet from the blackness of its history there emerge vivid colours of human character and courage. Those who risked their lives to help their friends.

So the brother in black offers to these United States the source of courage that endures and laughter.

The cool wind blew in my face and all at once I felt as if I had shed dullness from myself. Before me lay a long gray line with a black mark down the center. The birds were singing. It was spring.

I grew up around hip-hop so I didn't think it was about being cool or being black or being white or whatever.

White people couldn't do black music back in the day because they weren't funky or bad enough. They weren't from the ghettoes but hip-hop and R&B changed all of that because white kids want to be down with it. They wanted to learn it so they studied the culture. It's kind of a cool thing because we shouldn't be so separate.

So when I got to be about 13 or 14 I started listening - even though my parents music was way cool - to contemporary hard rock at that time which was Aerosmith Cheap Trick Black Sabbath AC/DC Ted Nugent and all that and that's just where I came from.

My parents were vegetarians. I'd show up at school this giant black kid with none of the cool clothes and a tofu sandwich and celery sticks.

I never saw music in terms of men and women or black and white. There was just cool and uncool.

You don't have to be a certain thing to be cool. If you're white you don't have to act black or whatever. Just be you and know who you are.

Now I'm way into suits that I can put on whether I took a shower or not and wear barefoot and paint my toes black or whatever color the suit is. It's very cool to wear suits like that. Roll up the sleeves and just say yee-haw.

Computers are scary. They're nightmares to fix lose our stuff and on occasion they crash producing the blue screen of death. Steve Jobs knew this. He knew that computers were bulky and hernia-inducing and Darth Vader black. He understood the value of declarative design.

Good communication is as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard.

Good communication is just as stimulating as black coffee and just as hard to sleep after.

On the political front of course it's a zero-sum game. If it's all white males holding positions you bring 10 women in then it's 'Women are coming!' Get 10 blacks and it's 'Blacks are coming!' 'Hispanics are coming!' Zero-sum game. The seatmates might change but the chairs don't move. In the economy the number of chairs can actually increase.

Any film I do is not going to change the way black women have been portrayed or black people have been portrayed in cinema since the days of D.W. Griffith.

As another has well said to handicap a student by teaching him that his black face is a curse and that his struggle to change his condition is hopeless is the worst sort of lynching.

People would say you look weak if you're not cursing the opposition and driving around in a big black car while always wearing a tie. Above all to be 'strong' you're always supposed to be giving orders.

They put chains on me they chained my waist my legs. Put me in the back of a squad car and I literally blacked out. I didn't even - there's whole pieces missing.

Because I'm a young black man driving a really nice expensive car I sometimes get harassed when I'm rolling through a ghetto neighbourhood.

It was 100 feet of 16 mm black-and-white film of a car coming to a stop sign and driving off. I had to decide how to frame and light it. It was magic. There was a sense of mystery.

In terms of the technology I use the most it's probably a tie between my Blackberry and my MacBook Pro laptop. That's how I communicate with the rest of the world and how I handle all the business I have to handle.

It's not hard to get your way when it's your way or the highway. People either follow suit or they're not around. I don't really like the sound of that 'cause that sounds like a temper tantrum. I'm just very black and white when it comes to my business. There's really no gray area.