Quite frankly, I've always listened to the black side of the radio dial. Where I grew up, there was a lot of it and there was a lot of live music around.

I was a guitar player first off.

I am not a jazz singer. I wouldn't place myself on that footing. I wouldn't even enter that arena.

The short answer is, yes, I think I have become a better singer.

I think the women - Lauryn Hill, Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu - are doing new conceptual things and using their voices to create new American music.

My earliest influences were things I heard in my household.

I think that it can be said of a lot of artists, and myself included, that we made the same record over and over from the beginning.