For me, music is in no way ornamental or decorative, it's constitutive of who I am. And that's why, when I say I'm a blues man, that's a very serious vocation - to muster the courage to find your own unique voice, to forge your distinctive style in the world, to leave your imprint in the sands of time in such a way that your singularity, your individuality, remains something that people have to come to terms with.

I had a passion and love of learning and wisdom that was inseparable from a love of music and the arts. I've never viewed them in any way as being separable.

Martin Luther King's legacy is never to be measured by bricks and mortar, but rather by the kind of lives that we live, and the kind of love and service that we render.

And when I talk about love, I'm talking about something that's great, though, brother. I'm talking about something that will sustain you.

I was deeply influenced by the sartorial practices of both preachers and jazz musicians and actually Masha in Act One of Anton Chekhov, my favorite writer's master piece,Three Sisters,when she arrives reflecting on whether they're ever going to get to Moscow, memories of the death of their father, and she's in black, and she says I'm in mourning for the world, saying in part that I have a sad soul and a cheerful disposition.

Hey, you got something going here. I think we've got a chance for some progressive policy that actually focuses on poor and working people.

Patriarchy is a disease and we are in perennial recovery and relapse. So you have to get up every morning and struggle against it.