When we first started, we were best pals and we all got along great. As we got older, when the money started coming in, everyone changed in different ways.
When I first started in Formula 1, I tried to ignore the fact I was the first black guy ever to race in the sport. But, as I've got older, I've really started to appreciate the implications.
I started playing violin because I was fascinated by how violin players could play so fast. I would buy their cassettes, and learn different concertos, but then I started rounding out my collection. My dad was a big jazz fan, so I just started hearing a lot more soul music. I loved Little Stevie Wonder, and I got really into him as a singer and a writer as I got older.
I started playing ukulele first for 2 years from age 9 to 11 and got my first guitar and got inspired by blues I heard on the radio that turned me on and I started learning myself.
I've got to sing for Pops; I've got to keep my father's legacy alive because he started all of this. So I started calling people, and nobody would give me a chance, but I didn't let that stop me. I took money out the bank and I started making me a record, and I did it in this guy's basement.
When I look back at my first few seasons in the NBA, we didn't dominate as a team. There were a lot of nights where we took a beating and got whacked across the head. But we got better along the way, and we started to taste the success. With that came the pressure and expectations to be successful.
The best piece of advice I ever got from anyone was when Spike Jonze said, 'Take money out of the equation.' And that's actually when Vice started making lots of money. That's when I stopped worrying about money and started worrying about what I wanted to do.
As I got older, I went to school. I started doing plays, I learned about the craft of acting, and I started to love acting for different reasons. I think I started to love acting because it brought me closer to people and made me more compassionate.
I started out doing commercials, like Diet Coke and Pizza Hut. And I started to find there was a different life for me, in a different field. From there, I got a call from a director in Italy, and we did 'Indio' I and II, and that's where it started.
When I first started playing at Norwich, West Brom were in the Championship, got promoted, got relegated, got promoted, got relegated, and all the time, they were building until they eventually stayed up.
I started playing instruments before I started making beats, and I was never the best guitarist or the best pianist or the best drummer. And when I started making beats, I was not the best beatmaker, and when I started making hooks, I was not the best vocal melody person. When I first started rapping, I wasn't the best rapper at all.
When I started graduate school we did this publishing class where we learned about submitting and read interviews with editors from different magazines. A lot of them said they got so many submissions that unless the first page stuck out or the first paragraph or even the first sentence they'll probably send it back. So part of my idea was that if I have a really good first sentence maybe they'll read on a bit further. At least half, maybe more of the stories in Knockemstiff started with the first sentence; I got it down then went from there.
I started in comedy when I first started as an actor on stage and doing improvisational theater and stuff like that. So a lot of people who know me know that sort of side of me. But I got the roles that I got as an young actor kind of steered me in a different direction, which were, at times, darker characters. And so comedy was not something that came easy for people to think of my in those terms.
My brother was older, very bright. He went to university. I wasn't academically bright - maybe at first, when I was little, but it was lost. I started doing a drama workshop and got really into it, then I did a BTec in performing arts and started to work.
When I first started playing, I definitely had a younger scum-punk crowd, but as my music developed more and after I started playing electric guitar - you'd think it would be opposite - but a lot of people were like, "You've changed." And I have more of an older audience now.
My love for cooking began when I was young. Because my parents were in the army, they were both really busy. A lot of times I'd have to cook for the family; I'd rotate with my siblings. It started out as a chore, but as I got older, my mom started to see that I was really good at it. I became her sous chef.
When I first started, my songs were the politics of anger. As I got older and hopefully wiser, I wanted to be part of the politics of answers.