Quotes from Awkwafina

I feel that its important for me to be out there and to represent the face. At the same time, for me as an individual, I think the Asian-American face can be crowded with the American identity.

They're not going to have a homeless person on a poster representing New York.

I grew up thinking Margaret Cho and Lucy Liu were my idols because that's it.

I think that's why I was able to do well in the beginning: because it was such a foreign thing. People frame it in a negative way, like, 'For Asian-Americans there's no one out there, so that must be really bad for you.' No, I benefited from it.

Rap was started by black people and, thus, is at the foundation of black culture. So people cannot always wrap their minds around someone like me being inspired by it. But if you listen to the things we're saying, they're authentically us.

I remember watching Margaret Cho with my grandmother on TV. She was my hero, not only because she was funny, but because she showed me that it's okay to be yourself, that it's okay to be a brash yellow girl and to be a strong and brave woman.

I grew up two train stops from where A Tribe Called Quest grew up, and one stop from Nas.

I think the people get that I'm just kind of an anomaly in a certain way.

I legitimately wanted to know if Mayor Bloomberg was going to ban large margaritas that I cry over while on a date alone at Dallas BBQ as a part of his controversial soda ban.

I started with me as Awkwafina reciting 'Othello' monologues, and I'd send those to my friends. It started like that, and then it went into more music-y stuff.

I think there are barriers, but I think for me specifically, my barrier is being rejected from the kind of hip-hop elitists that think I'm not appropriating it, but just not serious about it. They think I'm a Lonely Island, Weird Al, you know - like a parody rapper. So that alienates me from a lot of things.

I guess, like, I've always listened to rap, and I remember I specifically started listening to, like, pop-rap when I was, like, 11, you know, like Shaggy. I love Shaggy. And then I discovered, like, underground rap when I got to high school, and really, that's when it kind of blossomed. I don't feel like my love for rap blossomed off of Shaggy.

I have lived in this city my whole life and have seen the way gentrification has changed it. I'm not necessarily against transplants, as 75 percent of my good friends, roommate, and boyfriend are not native New Yorkers.

I'm not trying to unite Asian people with my music.

My grandmother can never really teach me anything because she skips steps.

When I went to college, it became more of a hobby, and that's when I think I got the realest music education. It wasn't something that I had to do. It wasn't an obligation.

I think people always want to hear that there are barriers that exist for us. But the more I started to realize artists that are kind of like me in my lane, like, if they were white or African-American, they often had trouble because it wasn't the quality of their music: they just didn't stick out.

I like to rap about things that are funny but mostly things that are relatable. I remember there was this one song with Ja Rule, and I forgot, exactly, but it was with Ashanti, and there's a line in it that was like, 'She hit me up on AIM.' But that wasn't the actual line; it was something else, but I was like, 'Oh my God, he uses AIM!'

I studied my craft at the same place as Nicki Minaj.

If you don't address race, then people are like, 'Why don't you talk about the elephant in the room?' But you have to do it right. It can't be gimmicky.