50 Quotes by Malcolm-Jamal Warner

Acting had been a hobby that turned into a career, the directing was a hobby that turned into a career, and music just really allowed me to find another way to express myself. I started playing bass in November 1996, and by June 1998 I was doing my first live show.

I never wanted to look back on my career and be embarrassed about work that I chose to do. I never wanted to look at character I've done and cringe.

People who feel under-appreciated sometimes make desperate moves.

I would love to play just an all out bad guy who has fun being malicious. It would be totally unexpected, and that's what would make it exciting. Plus, bad guys don't see themselves as bad guys, so you could have fun with that.

My band, Miles Long, is a jazz-funk spoken word band. There's jazz sensibilities, but I'm a bass player, so I'm very much into the head-bobbing vibe with sophisticated lyrics.

I've always been a poet. My dad went to Lincoln University with Gil-Scott Heron, so I came out of the womb listening to Gil-Scott Heron.

Though my music audience is cross-generational, like my television audience, my core demographic is people like myself. People who have grown up on hip-hop, but hip-hop doesn't necessarily speak to us any longer.

Our differences - in race, sexual preference, economic - have always been used as distractions to keep us divided. We get so wrapped up in our own stories that we can't hear each other.

Since the beginning of establishment, poets and spoken word artists have always been both vocal supporters and critics of government. And in this age of Trump as President, alternative facts, falsehoods becoming truth at the send of a tweet, it's vital that spoken word poetry does its job helping to keep folks 'woke' and not numb or shut down.