You can't be old and wise, if you were never young and crazy.

Girls are losing their virginity at 15, 16. I'm not promoting that. But my songs are talking... about me becoming a man.

Loving is doing anything for them, thinking about them constantly and being able to spend your whole life with that person. Liking somebody is just like, 'Okay, I like them because of this, this and this, but I don't knkow if I am ready to be in love with them'.

I tried to stay away from the Euro beats, and not go totally pop. Instead, I wanted to take the Quincy Jones approach. The record pays homage to the Stevie Wonders, the Michael Jacksons, the Sam Cookes. I wanted to put that classic essence of R&B and soul with the new age of music now. There’s a lot of live instruments, and a lot less Auto-Tune. I really wanted to demonstrate my vocal ability, creating the vibe of me singing along with a band.

It's the Roman numeral for 10. 5/5/89 is my birthday: 5 plus 5 is 10, and this is my tenth year since I got into music. 'X' is the 24th letter in the alphabet, and I will turn 24 when this album comes out. 'X' is also a metaphor, as in 'ex-girlfriend': it implies you're progressing and moving on in life, not holding on to the past and your old ways.

I love Karrueche very much but I don't want to see her hurt over my friendship with Rihanna, i'd rather be single allowing us to both be happy in our lives.

I'm 18 in this album. I'm not losing fans, and I'm not disrepecting women, but you reach the maturity of taking it to the next level with a girl. It was only necessary for me to have at least one song like that.