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.

Daveed Diggs

Work Pet Art

Acting is about finding truth and finding the way to convey the truth.

Daveed Diggs

Truth Way Tin

I have a recognizable silhouette.

Daveed Diggs

T Silhouette Recognizable

Being an emcee onstage is mostly about crowd control, about monitoring energy levels.

Daveed Diggs

Age Tag T

As more doors open for me, I try to always bring people who I know through.

Daveed Diggs

Who Ways Way

I feel like, anytime I'm onstage, I tend to feel very connected with people in the audience or with the sort of heartbeat or tempo of the audience.

Daveed Diggs

Time Art Age

I can jump really high, yeah. I'm proud of that. I'll take it.

Daveed Diggs

Yeah Take T

At some point, I'll do more McDonald's commercials if I have to.

Daveed Diggs

T Some Point

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.

Daveed Diggs

Writing Way Tin

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.

Daveed Diggs

Love Car Art

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.

Daveed Diggs

Music Your You

The fact that rap has a strict meter and stays to a click means that you have to make your thoughts concise.

Daveed Diggs

Your You Thoughts

I was really aware, even while it was happening, that the discovery of arts education in my life sort of saved my life.

Daveed Diggs

War Life Education

History is about who tells it.

Daveed Diggs

History Who Tory

I've always been very supported. I've never really been sad. I've just been broke. They are very different things.

Daveed Diggs

Sad Ways Way

The reason you write something that is exciting and visceral is to force people to hear what you have to say, especially if you're in any kind of marginalized community where people don't want to listen. You have to come up with tricks to make them listen.

Daveed Diggs

You Write Wit

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.

Daveed Diggs

Music Men Age

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.

Daveed Diggs

Work Pet Art

I have all of Kendrick Lamar on vinyl.

Daveed Diggs

Vinyl Rick Mar

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.

Daveed Diggs

Change T Sort

Using something that is really painful, generally, as the percussive element for a beat, I think is cool.

Daveed Diggs

Men Cool Using

I warm up a lot harder for a Clipping show than I ever did for 'Hamilton.'

Daveed Diggs

College was the first time I felt I really had to choose who my friends were.

Daveed Diggs

Neither of my parents live in Oakland anymore. They both got priced out.

Daveed Diggs

I've always gravitated toward technical music in general. I love jazz fusion.

Daveed Diggs

There's this thing about authenticity when you rap, right? Whether or not it's real, it has to feel real.

Daveed Diggs

I went to Hebrew school but opted out of a bar mitzvah.

Daveed Diggs

I've always been a fan of 'Black-ish.'

Daveed Diggs

As a kid, I was very shy.

Daveed Diggs

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.

Daveed Diggs

If a project feels good to you, say yes. And do it with everything that you have and hope that the outcome is good.

Daveed Diggs

Oftentimes, it feels like we spend so much of our life waiting to make art, waiting for somebody to let us do something. You don't really have to do that. You can make it all the time. And 99 percent of the time, it's not going to be a big deal on a global scale. But 100 percent of the time, it's going to make you feel amazing.

Daveed Diggs

I'm an artist, so days don't start on any regular time.

Daveed Diggs

Learning how to get a point across is pretty useful in any situation.

Daveed Diggs

Being on stage, I know my function. I just do the thing.

Daveed Diggs

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.

Daveed Diggs

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.

Daveed Diggs

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 miss doing a straight play.

Daveed Diggs

I call myself a nerd all the time.

Daveed Diggs

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.

Daveed Diggs

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.

Daveed Diggs

I have this thing. I can rap really fast. I can rap really, really fast. It's a thing I'm good at and I've trained myself to do; it's a thing I do in the Bay Area.

Daveed Diggs

Everybody from the Bay has a superiority complex because we're dope.

Daveed Diggs

TV is really about keeping things fresh and making sure you have the most energy possible for these very short spurts of time.

Daveed Diggs

I get to say 'no' to a lot of things. That, for an artist, is crazy.

Daveed Diggs

I make the energy to go out. You can't let the Broadway schedule run you.

Daveed Diggs

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?'

Daveed Diggs

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.

Daveed Diggs

Often, the people I'm working with on music are separate from the rest of my life.

Daveed Diggs

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.

Daveed Diggs