I really just followed my musical instincts every step of my life.

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

As far as other instrumentalists, I used to love mellow sax players like Paul Desmond. I love piano.

My songwriting and my style became more complex as I listened, learned, borrowed and stole and put my music together.

As a guitar player, you can gravitate to the blues because you can play it easily. It's not a style that's difficult to pick up. It's purely emotive and dead easy to get a start with.

I'm not a jazz singer.