“When I was a critic, I reviewed Public Enemy’s ‘Muse Sick-n-Hour Mess Age’ – this is back in ’94 – and I called it a ‘Dante-esque spiral of the hip-hop hell.’ I idolized Chuck D, but I just hated that record, and I did not hold back. Chuck didn’t freeze me out. Every time I met Chuck, he always treated me with the utmost respect.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Police officers see everything, and they experience everything, and they don’t always act correctly.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Fatherhood is something that is personal to me because I didn’t grow up around my father.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.’”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“The power that you have as a storyteller is to be able to tell stories that are at once entertaining but also never lose sight of what’s going on in the real world.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Even though I’m not Jamaican, I’ve always loved Jamaican culture because, to me, it’s the island of magic, it’s the island of politics, of resistance.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“I just felt that Danny Rand within the Luke Cage universe… I just felt that he was going to be dope.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“The Luke Cage you saw in Season One was a reluctant hero. He was trying to figure out if he wanted to be a hero in the first place. And then fate intervened and forced him to step up his game.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“You can’t really say that Bushmaster or Mariah Dillard is a bigger bad, because they both do some pretty heinous things.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Most superheroes, when you look at origin stories – before they invent their costume, they just go with what’s around.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“I finally achieved my dream by being a TV showrunner.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“My era was ’90s Carhartt-and-Timberlands hip-hop. That’s my rock n’ roll.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“When you scratch the soul of hip-hop, you find R&B and funk but also reggae.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“The first ‘Creed’ is one of the best movies I’ve ever seen.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Even though my approach is slightly different, the Luke Cage of ‘Jessica Jones’ is no stranger to the Luke Cage of Marvel’s ‘Luke Cage.’ It’s really a continuation to a certain extent. It’s just got a little different flavor, but it’s still the same suit.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“’Daredevil’ is haunted by Frank Miller, from the standpoint of the Frank Miller run on ‘Daredevil’ is so insurmountable.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“All black art, post-slavery, has always tried to prove in its own way that a black life is the equivalent of anyone else’s.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Our Luke Cage is a black hero, not a hero who happens to be black.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“People underestimate hip-hop the way they have sometimes underestimated comic books.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Hip-hop is as much an attitude and perspective as it is a music form.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“One of my favorite comic books of all-time is the graphic novel ‘God Loves, Man Kills.’”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“The reason that Shaft has a dominant theme song is because James Bond has a dominant theme song.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Honestly, what ‘Luke Cage’ is – it’s a hip-hop Western. And you have Luke Cage as the sheriff of Harlem.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“To me, Harlem is one of the most important places on the earth, particularly when it comes to talking about African Americans.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“As long as black people preserve their culture in Harlem, Harlem will always be alive.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“’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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“One of my biggest influences, of course, is David Simon and his work on ‘The Wire.’”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“That’s the thing about TV: it gives you so much time to tell your story; it’s comparable to comics.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“If you’re a black person in America, it’s really hard to avoid being black. And what I mean is that the reality of your cultural history, regardless of whether or not you talk about it, it’s there.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“It’s important to for your kids to see themselves in their superheroes. Really, it’s important for all of us.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Black writers seldom get the opportunity to write superhero stories.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“My grandfather was a Tuskegee Airman. He flew with the 100th Fighter Squadron.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“My mom and dad met at U. Conn., and their lives couldn’t have been more different in terms of their upbringing.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Television has power.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Even though I’ve got this really brawny, masculine reputation, I’m a Shondaland Thursdays kind of guy.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“I’m a hip-hop showrunner.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“All black art is always judged to illuminate our experience and prove that our stories and our history and our lives matter. And that goes back to Ralph Ellison, James Baldwin, Langston Hughes, Zora Neale Hurston – take your pick.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“For me, hip-hop has always been black superhero music.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“One of my favorite memories as a kid was when the original ‘Secret Wars’ came out with the debut of the black costume for Spider-Man. I remember I couldn’t wait to get home to read it, and I was like, ‘Oh, my God, I’ve been waiting for this comic to come out. I hope, God forbid, nothing happens to me before I get home to read it.’”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“The thing that all police officers decide when they wake up in the morning is that they’re going home.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Human sexuality is not always about being labeled. It’s about having a human moment, an emotion.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Netflix likes critical attention, and they like their analytics.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“I come from hip-hop – meaning that I don’t mind if you come at me. In fact, I prefer it. But I prefer that you come at the show with credible critique.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.’”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“You have to tell a super story that has some fantastical element, but the human element is what’s going to keep people watching.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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?”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“In the imagination, Harlem will always be the spiritual capital of black excellence in America.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“I really think that Steven Caple, Jr. is going to be a great addition to the ‘Rocky’ director pantheon.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“When you’re a black superhero, you can’t erase the notion that you’re black. If you’re black, living in the community, and you want to change things, there are going to be things that happen. That’s true of anybody. I mean, you could use celebrity as a similar metaphor.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“What Peter Jackson proved with ‘Lord Of The Rings’ movies is that you could make various changes, and you could pull things around, but as long as it was in the spirit of the storytelling, and because he made The Shire so real, the fans forgave him for the changes.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“’Southland’ was really where I learned so much about drama.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“I can’t turn hip-hop off, just like I can’t turn comic books off. It blends into everything for me.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Harlem has always been the nexus of music, politics, culture, criminal figures.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“People underestimate the complexity of comic books.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Some people, when they get criticism, they shy away from it.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“For me, I was never really obsessed with Luke Cage. My obsession was Wolverine.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“For ‘Luke Cage,’ of course, I was familiar with Power Man and Iron Fist. I read the comics. That was really more stuff that you read for fun. It wasn’t that you read either of those comics for profound moments, although they have profound moments.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“There aren’t a lot of African-American superheroes. I’ve been reading comics since I was eight or nine years old. Luke Cage stood out.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“’Clockers’ – as much as it is a very focused crime drama, it sprawls.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Bushmaster was such a great adversary, and Mustafa Shakir, just the way that he embodies him in terms of the power of the voice, the stillness, and then, at the same time, when they do get after it, when he does fight, just how kinetic he was. He just brought a great dynamic and being able to explore his history in making the character Jamaican.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Black women are the most passionate commentators, and even as black female geeks and nerds, they are rarely acknowledged.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“I don’t see female characters as different or inferior to male characters.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“Rosario Dawson is such a resourceful, intelligent actress that you can do anything with her.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“I was a huge fan of comics: not necessarily ‘Luke Cage.’ I was more of an ‘X-Men’ head. I was always more Chris Claremont, Frank Miller, John Byrne.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“I always respected Luke Cage and thought that he was interesting, and I really liked what Brian Michael Bendis did in his update of the character in ‘Alias,’ the comic.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“My private joke about ‘Luke Cage’ is that it’s a bulletproof version of ‘Lemonade,’ and that, essentially, it’s a concept album that has a video component.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“The thing is, so much of the African American experience is about the redefinition of roots because of slavery. We were uprooted, and there’s so much about our whole legacy that was stolen and that we lost in the Transatlantic slave trade that we’ll never find out.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“I will always get a certain thrill of watching bullets bounce off Luke Cage.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“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.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
“This is a country that I love and that I believe in, but at the same time also believe that you should, as a part of this country, have the right to be able to talk very clearly about the issues that are happening, going on.”
― Cheo Hodari Coker
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