A Quote by Malik Yoba

I like working with great talent, in every capacity. I have a rule of thumb, in any creative endeavor - whether I'm doing music and playing in a band, or working with producers, or directing - where I generally like to work with people who are smarter than me or better than me.
Really, I'll go anywhere at any time to continue working in theater - it's a passion that I'm thankful I still have. It keeps me creative and on my toes and meeting great people. I can't imagine a better way of working than on a play.
I immensely enjoy any experience directing. I've never hated it, and I've had bad experiences. At the end of the day, I just feel like I'm supposed to be on a set. I'm supposed to be working with creative people. I'm supposed to be working with actors and I'm supposed to be manning a project in this capacity. It's interesting.
Business is just like sports: if you're the best in the group that you run in, you're never going to get any better. It's the same thing in business. I surround myself with people who are smarter than me and have more experience than me, and I have gotten a lot of great advice.
I need to work with great directors and actors, people who are better than me, so that I am challenged. It is like playing sports - surfing, basketball, it doesn't matter what it is, if you play with people who are better than you, then you get better too. It is the same thing with acting.
Some people, they take their form of working out as a religion that they think is better than everyone else's. I'm not like that. If you have a better way to work out, and you can teach it to me, and I find it to be useful and gets me in better shape, I'm all about.
The thing with 'The West Wing' is that the fantasy was legitimately better than the reality - these were smarter, better people than their real-life counterparts, working together at a better White House than the one we had.
Working with the actors, working with production designers, working with the creative people who surround the process is really fun, it's really inspiring and I take great pleasure in working with them. That's what's most fun about directing.
You just do you like when you're doing any other song. It's nothing different. Some people are like "How's it like working with Kendrick Lamar?" and really, it's like working with anyone else that I work with.
I'm just as intrigued by acting as ever. It's an ongoing process. There's no arrival. There's no point at which you say "Oh, OK, done it, got it." It just doesn't happen. And that's true of any creative endeavor. For me, it's just a lifelong interest. I'm very much interested in the craft. I started by doing plays and it took me a long time to feel comfortable doing movies, working with cameras. I felt like I was a theater actress pretending that I was a movie actress for quite a while. Now, I just love the process of working with cameras and being on a set and trying to put a film together.
I had been working purely abstractly for so long, it was important for me to see whether I was working abstractly because I couldn't work any other way, or whether I was doing it out of choice.
Writing and working with producers is like dating - it sounds strange to say that, but you have to test people out. You have to be like: 1) I like your music. 2) I like you, you're a good person. 3) Let's hang out and see if we can work together. And that is where music comes from.
I like hearing from everybody and not just my co-screenwriters or producers. For example, while on set, I find it valuable to turn to my PA and ask, 'What do you think? Is this scene working? Do you like what you see? You got any ideas for that line there because that idea isn't working for me.'
Band members have a special bond. A great band is more than just some people working together. It's like a highly specialized army unit, or a winning sports team. A unique combination of elements that becomes stronger together than apart.
I felt like a fake the whole time and it made me very, very nervous - which is why I have such great respect for actors, because I can't do what they do. I really can't do it. I'm always uncomfortable. And I'm just grateful that I recognized that this uncomfortable-ness was a sign that I shouldn't be doing it. More than not having any talent - which is clearly obvious - more than not having any talent, it was so uncomfortable and I was so insecure. And I was so frightened. And the thought of being somebody other than myself was impossible for me.
I would just like to say this about all the married people working together on the set: it was just a joy. That is the great joy to go to work with people that you love, whether they be people that you are in love with or people that you just love and be creative and artistic and make things that you want to send out into the world and make people feel good. It was a great environment to work in for me.
I do not want and will not take a royalty on any record I record. I think paying a royalty to a producer or engineer is ethically indefensible. The band write the songs. The band play the music. It's the band's fans who buy the records. The band is responsible for whether it's a great record or a horrible record. Royalties belong to the band. I would like to be paid like a plumber. I do the job and you pay me what it's worth.
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