There are two people that probably influenced me more than anybody out of all the artists out here: that's Nick Ashford and Valerie Simpson.

I refused to be disrespected. So, at 16, of course, I was a gentleman about it, but I told them and it cost me my job.

The music is everything to me.

The minute you think you're greater than the music, you're finished

I learned to trust women's ears when it comes to hearing music a lot more than other men.

The lack of quality dance music and the fact that here in the United States, house music is not seen as anything viable by the music industry. I figured that this might be another shot at the industry looking at the possibilities of house music and giving it a little bit more legitimacy than what they give it. It's a host of different things, but it's something that I needed to say musically.

I have worked with a lot of different great people. One of the things my partner, my manager Judy Weinstein, instilled in [David] Morales and myself is that the quality goes in before the name goes home.