Daveed Diggs

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

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

“I think this idea of a big break is a lie.”

“Broadway was weird.”

“My parents are not together, but they were both always around.”

“That's the great thing about how 'SVU' works. They work with so many Broadway actors, they are very used to getting us out in time for the show.”

“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.”

“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.”

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

“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.”

“The tricky thing about fast raps is not really the delivery of them; it's the writing of them, with consonants close enough together that you don't trip up over them.”

“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.”

“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.”

“I get excited to create things that don't exist in the same world as 'Hamilton' because that world is really well done and doesn't need me to inform it anymore.”

“I didn't know a single musical soundtrack, really, growing up. Nobody listened to musicals. That wasn't a thing I did.”

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

“As a kid, I was very shy.”

“I majored in theater. I did plays. But musicals were not my thing.”

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

“I'm fascinated with the regionality of rap music.”