My fans are the best in the world! They've grown up with me and stayed with me through this entire journey.

As I've gotten older, now I've really got to back that up with record sales. Anytime showed me that I could still have some of those elements I wanted, but you still have to come with hit after hit after hit.

For me able to do the records I want to do and not have to worry about this producer or that producer or that trend, I'm not really interested in that.

Lionel Richie told me forget about the critics. But if you come back with hit after hit, you don't have to worry about anything.

I wanted to put jazz on the record, all the loves of music that I had on the record, so I could show people I was ahead of my 19 years. It may have been over the heads of some people.

I grew up in a time where anything was possible.

I went back and listened to the first three albums I made and tried to figure out what was special about them, why people keep going back to them. I think it was because I didn't know what I was doing. I had no idea if they were going to play it on the radio or anything. All I did was write songs, so that's what I got back to.