We all know we have a finite period of time. I just feel if I'm going to be alive, I want to be challenged - to be as immortal as possible. The path to that isn't an easy way, but it's a rewarding way.

The idea of recognizing your strengths and using them in as versatile a way as you can is cool to me.

I've been thinking about forever

People are just afraid of things too much … Sure, evil exists, extremism exists. Somebody could commit a hate crime and hurt me. But they could do the same just because I'm black. They could do the same just because I'm American.

A friend of mine jokes that I have a painstaking royalty complex. Like maybe I was a duke in a past life.

I don't intend to stop making music.

We were poor. But my mom never accepted that. She worked hard to become a residential contractor - got her master's with honors at the University of New Orleans. I used to go to every class with her. Her father was my paternal figure.