I bury my mind in my book, the Bible. Every morning it's the first thing that I do. I've been doing it for years and years. So I want to come back here [to Israel] to see the places that I read about every day. It's very important to my faith to feed [my] spirit in Israel.

Seriously though, my father was the first African American to sign a contract with the Metropolitan Opera so I grew up with classical music and jazz in the home all the time.

I try not to "perform." I try to come on stage and be myself, to sing the way I would in a room by myself, to interact with the audience the way I would relate to them if we were in my kitchen drinking tea and making up silly songs. Maybe the way to get past the fear of being ourselves is simply to try it more often.

Musicians are the architects of heaven.

I don't want anything to get in the way of me and my singing. I want my mind as clear as possible.

I use the audience as my color palette, my instrument.

Music is so powerful, it needs to be used for some kind of redeeming work. To lift peoples spirits, to lift their souls.