Quotes from 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.

My era was '90s Carhartt-and-Timberlands hip-hop. That's my rock n' roll.

I can't turn hip-hop off, just like I can't turn comic books off. It blends into everything for me.

I'm a hip-hop showrunner.

Honestly, what 'Luke Cage' is - it's a hip-hop Western. And you have Luke Cage as the sheriff of Harlem.

You have to tell a super story that has some fantastical element, but the human element is what's going to keep people watching.

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.

Even though I've got this really brawny, masculine reputation, I'm a Shondaland Thursdays kind of guy.

Some people, when they get criticism, they shy away from it.

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.

I don't see female characters as different or inferior to male characters.

Rosario Dawson is such a resourceful, intelligent actress that you can do anything with her.

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.

That's the thing about TV: it gives you so much time to tell your story; it's comparable to comics.

Human sexuality is not always about being labeled. It's about having a human moment, an emotion.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.'

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.

In the imagination, Harlem will always be the spiritual capital of black excellence in America.

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.