Activism, to me, I don't know if it really works. It may work for somebody else, but it does not work for me.
When they put me in jail, that's when they turned me into an activist. Up until the time I went to jail, I was just a comedian.
I love to meet my fans, and after every show I usually hang out for a few hours, talking to my fans, signing autographs, and selling T-shirts.
Awakening your spiritual side is really what artists do. When you hit a groove, it's not you; it's the spirit world.
The Shades never recorded anything, Little Daddy and the Bachelors recorded a couple of records, ya.
You can't become a dictator through checks and balances.
The smartest billionaires I know never finished high school. I got my degree and my doctorate on the street and an advanced degree in jail.
People try to put ownership on things: 'That's mine, that's my joke.' No such thing. Like if you tripped or stumbled and people go, 'Oh, that's Charlie Chaplin.' You know what I mean? You can't own a joke. You can be the guy that tells it the best, but you can't own a joke. Nowhere can you own a laugh.
You look at Cheney, Rumsfeld, Karl Rove, and Bush - if you saw them on Halloween, they wouldn't need a costume. You'd give them a treat and compliment them on what great-looking demons they were. They are demons. There's no doubt about it.
The way jazz works is that we take a theme, and then we write using the same structure, same chord changes, and then we can do different tunes.
Cigarettes, I won't do cigarettes, nicotine will kill ya.
I've been a good boy, I've never really been convicted of serious crime.
One night all the James Brown band was playing on stage and I look in the back and I could see Mick Jagger and Keith Richards trying to get in the club and they couldn't get in cause it was to crowded.
They just wanted to show the entertainment world that we're vulnerable.
I was about sixteen when I discovered that music could get you laid, so I got into music boy, didn't matter what you looked like either, you could be a geeky looking guy but if you played music, whoa, you'd get the girls.
My incarceration was actually a positive thing from the beginning. I needed a gimmick to get my act going again, it gave me material.
The GRAMMY was a huge deal. It's the height of any musical career.
When you hit a groove, it's not you; it's the spirit world. The spirits whisper the ideas in your brain and prod you along. They're the ones that are really happy.
Maybe once in a while, you know, after a hard day of shooting or something like that, I'd kick back.
There's a hierarchy in prison, and I was right at the top.
