I was so deeply involved in music, I had already outgrown all the pressure of high school cliques and gossip.

But when I first fell in love with the piano, I knew it was me. I was dying to play.

I am able to hang with the hardest, the baddest, the worst, and I'm able to hang with the most proper and be at ease. I'm able to hang with any skin colour, any belief. I just fit in everywhere.

We have the potential to help people out of poverty, out of disease, out of slavery and out of conflict. Too often we turn the other way because we think there's nothing we can do.

You have to identify what you care about and why you care about it. It has to be personal. It has to be something that fires you up or means something to you, or it's not going to drive you.

I acted before I sang. And I did The Cosby Show, and things like that. But the music kind of came first. And it was a part of my essence. So I knew that I would evolve into this world.

I think conveying the emotion of the collective "we" is pretty incredible. Especially in tumultuous times like we are in now.