I'm one of the artists that even though I love my soulful stuff, I love to turn up and have a good time and that's another side of me. As long as it doesn't veer away from who I am, I'm down with it.

I can't be passionate about something that I don't understand. In my music, I feel that's why people can connect so well with it because it's all honest.

The influence that Oakland has on my sound is about 90%. There's so many different elements to Oakland. Of course you have the street elements, but then you also have the culture and there's so much culture around. It's a competitive city, it's full of just great artists and talent. It gave me the confidence, the passion, the realness I try my hardest to portray, so it has had about 90% influence on me.

I think that I work hard to make my music as a diary for new generations who find out about it years later. They can go through the history and see a trail. It's straight and narrow, you can see the growth and understand that I'm not afraid to give you honesty and be honest about anything that has to do with my story.

I'm connecting and that's really what any artist wants at the end of the day which is to connect with their fans and supporters.

I feel like pain is the quickest way to relate to someone because everybody has been through that and everybody has had a heartbreak.

I never put myself in a box. I like to have various different types of songs and different genres and situational songs. No matter is going on, I have something for that time or era.