To call yourself a Chinese artist or woman artist or African artist reflects a certain kind of condition. To me, that is not necessary.
As a female, we always have to be labeled this new female rapper. It's never like, 'I heard this rapper Tink.' It's always, 'I heard a female rapper.'
I'm a film director. Gay is an adjective that I certainly am, but I don't know that it's my first one. I think if you're just a gay filmmaker, you get pigeonholed just like if you say I'm a black filmmaker, I'm a Spanish filmmaker, I'm a whatever.
A painter is always overjoyed when anybody pays any attention to him at all, puts him in any category, calls him anything - as long as they call him something.
It's silly to throw things out or label things. You know, is U2 a Christian band, or was Johnny Cash a Christian country singer? I don't know, but they're pretty open about their faith.
Despite a large body of work in films, TV, theatre and concerts, I am viewed by many as a Jewish artist. I do not resent the label, except for the fact that I disapprove of labels in general.
Why do people want to know exactly who I am? Am I a poet? Am I this or that? I've always made people wary. First they called me a rock poet. Then I was a poet that dabbled in rock. Then I was a rock person who dabbled in art.
A photographer is a photographer and an artist is an artist. I don't believe in labels or titles. Why should a painter or sculptor who has probably never challenged the rules be an artist just because his title and an art school education automatically make him one.
A lot of people, especially Christians, want to put you in this box of being a Christian actor, and I don't believe in it. You do yourself and everyone else a big disservice when you start thinking about it as 'Christian art.' That's why most Christian art is bad. They don't put a premium on the 'art.'
It's tough to make music and make it your own, and not have somebody call it something you don't agree with but can't control. Sometimes the press doesn't realize how much power they have and how they can shape somebody's life. I think there's a lot of people just trying to make music and get their art out there, and their heads get f**ked by the press calling them this or calling them that.
I am not a black artist, I am an artist.
Why do we pigeonhole and label an artist? It is a sure way of missing the important, the contradictory, the things that make him or her unique.
Black comics, they only watch Black comedians. You're a comedian; you're not just a Black comedian. You're a comedian. I try to get that through to everybody.
I make all types of music. People wanna put me in a little box, and they get mad when I don't stay in there.
I don't know if it's really important, or intelligent even, when people say to me I'm a white Spike Lee, because they said to Spike Lee you're a black Woody Allen.
