Words matter. These are the best Cheo Hodari Coker Quotes, and they’re great for sharing with your friends.
I’m a hip-hop showrunner.
If there’s one thing that I’ve learned from both Spike Lee and Tarantino, it’s that you can wear your influences on your sleeve but at the same time invoke new energy and new flavor.
The difference between a Marvel superhero and a DC superhero is that we place Marvel superheroes in the real world that we recognize and that we know.
To me, Harlem is one of the most important places on the earth, particularly when it comes to talking about African Americans.
When I was a journalist, I didn’t care how many people talked to Ice Cube before I talked Ice Cube. I just knew that when I talked to Ice Cube, it was going to be different than what anybody else had done, and it was the same with any group.
It’s important to for your kids to see themselves in their superheroes. Really, it’s important for all of us.
Spike Lee is one of my biggest influences. What I love about Spike, other than he’s just a fun guy to hang around, is that Spike is fearless. As much as people talk about him being politically outspoken, let’s not forget that he’s one of the best screenwriters, ever, in addition to being a visual master.
Because I’m a former critic, I view criticism differently than most do. I can take criticism, but if you’re going to eviscerate us, be specific.
One of my biggest influences, of course, is David Simon and his work on ‘The Wire.’
I’m not ashamed of comic books. You have some people that are like, ‘We’re trying to elevate comic books.’ Comic books have always told great dramatic stories.
Hip-hop is as much an attitude and perspective as it is a music form.
The thing that was fascinating and frustrating about Pac was that he clearly knew better than to go down the gangster road that he went down. Pac knew – and he was right – that thug energy could be redirected into fearless positivity.
Black women are the most passionate commentators, and even as black female geeks and nerds, they are rarely acknowledged.
My grandfather was a Tuskegee Airman. He flew with the 100th Fighter Squadron.
With ‘Luke Cage,’ we all, as a collective wanted to tell the truest story that we could but, at the same time, also be very true to the comic book genre.
Some people, when they get criticism, they shy away from it.
Alfre Woodard is a powerhouse, master actor, but she’s also someone that you want to interact with, someone that you want to talk to.
The first ‘Creed’ is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.
When you’re dealing with African Americans, family is everything. Because we spend so much time talking about how one treats one’s family. Telling a black person that you haven’t talked to your mother in a week is probably different than it is with other races because people will look at you different.
I just felt that Danny Rand within the Luke Cage universe… I just felt that he was going to be dope.
The Caribbean is such a rich place, and Jamaica, personally, is one of my favorite places in the world. I’ve been lucky to, on various projects, to have spent a lot of time down there.
I think the fact that ‘Black Lightning,’ ‘Luke Cage’ and ‘Black Panther’ have each made noise in their own way will only lead to different superheroes and different genres.
I wanted Season 2 of Luke Cage to be Ice Cube’s ‘Death Certificate,’ or Fugees’ ‘The Score,’ or Public Enemy’s ‘It Takes a Nation of Millions to Hold Us Back,’ or my favorite, ‘The Low End Theory’ by A Tribe Called Quest.
I’m not going to be one of those people who says, ‘I’m a showrunner; I’m not a black showrunner.’ I’m black when I go to sleep. I’m black when I wake up, period. It doesn’t affect my perspective on everything, but at the same time, it’s who I am, and I’m proud of it.
Television has power.
As long as black people preserve their culture in Harlem, Harlem will always be alive.
I just always feel that any black art should address our perpetual struggle for progress and freedom, period. There’s no way around it. The thing is you can never predict what the next injustice is going to be. Unfortunately, it’s part of being black and conscious in America.
All Blaxploitation is, is the opportunity for an African-American cast or lead actor or actress to do the same things that a white action hero gets to do.
In reality, black women, women of color, are powerful, bold, dynamic, and self-assured, so there’s no reason their TV counterparts shouldn’t be as such.
When you’re writing about cops from the perspective of cops, that level of sarcasm about their job and how they treat people will color the writing to a certain extent.
Bob Marley was always ready to deal with the politics of what was happening in the world but, at the same time, not lose sight of the fact that he’s a musician.
Really, the arc for the first season of ‘Luke Cage’ is ‘hero.’ How does one become a hero? What does one feel about being a hero? How does one live their life and eventually go through the Elizabeth Kubler-Ross stages of grief until the acceptance is, ‘Fine, I’m a hero.’ This is what it is.
The reason I keep making so many musical metaphors with ‘Luke Cage’ is that I don’t view it as much a television show as I do a concept album with dialogue.
Black writers seldom get the opportunity to write superhero stories.
I will always get a certain thrill of watching bullets bounce off Luke Cage.
It’s better to write a pilot rather than write a spec show. In some cases, you have to do both, but more often, writing a pilot and having an original voice is more important.
Let’s face it: there aren’t a lot of black superheroes. So, in dealing with a black superhero, you’re going to deal with ugly history and the beauty of history.
The thing about Luke Cage that makes him different is – on the surface is he’s a hero for hire; Luke Cage wants to get paid. Luke Cage in the comic books is like, ‘I’m doing this stuff. It’s all well and good, but I gotta make a dollar.’
It’s much easier to talk about racism when you’re able to use mutants as a metaphor. People would much rather talk about Charles Xavier and Magneto than they would about Martin Luther King or Malcolm X.
People underestimate the complexity of comic books.
The only thing police patrol cops – in certain situations – are expert at is spotting anomalies. When you are a black person that is driving in a place that you stick out, that’s all they’re going to see.
‘Southland’ was really where I learned so much about drama.
If a superhero is a community superhero, then is he going to protect his community by controlling everything? If he decides to control crime, does that make him a crime boss? Does that make him a criminal?
I wanted Luke Cage to very much be an African American superhero rather than a superhero that happens to be black. I felt it was important to give him that cultural grounding but also show that it doesn’t make him an obtuse or one-sided character.
Honestly, what ‘Luke Cage’ is – it’s a hip-hop Western. And you have Luke Cage as the sheriff of Harlem.
My era was ’90s Carhartt-and-Timberlands hip-hop. That’s my rock n’ roll.
‘The Wire’ is, by far, my favorite television show of all time. And I’ve always said that my aspirations for ‘Luke Cage’ was that it would be ‘The Wire’ of the Marvel television universe.
I don’t see female characters as different or inferior to male characters.
The first time that I met B.I.G. was in 1994, summer of ’94 – I believe it was August. I think it was right after ‘Ready to Die’ came out.
My mom and dad met at U. Conn., and their lives couldn’t have been more different in terms of their upbringing.
The thing about being black in a mostly white industry, particularly as a black male, is you can’t lose your temper in the same way. Essentially, you are an angry black man losing his temper in a way that’s unprofessional, as opposed to an industry that has protected unprofessional white males in perpetua.
Police officers see everything, and they experience everything, and they don’t always act correctly.
The only thing that’s different about doing a superhero show is that you can have your hero do things that a normal cop in a procedural can’t do. But the structure of the storytelling is universal.
Hip hop fans are obsessed, and they’re geeks about hip hop. Comic book fans are also geeks, and when you can meld the two, then you open the world up to, I think, communities that will just take to each other.
Muhammed Ali is my favorite boxer, and the reason that I love Ali is because he’s not undefeated. It’s because of the fact that he risked it all at times and lost – but then came back.
For me, I was never really obsessed with Luke Cage. My obsession was Wolverine.
Rosario Dawson is such a resourceful, intelligent actress that you can do anything with her.
I can’t turn hip-hop off, just like I can’t turn comic books off. It blends into everything for me.
Sometimes you have to take the risk that somebody will consider what you’re making is noise, but if you don’t try it, then nothing will move forward. I’d rather people hate something than just go ‘meh.’
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