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.

I'm a lot more sensitive about music, I think, than most other guys in this particular side of the business. Most of them are beat crazy and beat heavy. I'm more melody. I'm more musical than most of the other ones.

A friend of mine that happened to be a DJ at another club actually offered me a job [as a DJ]. I didn't think I could do it but he said, "You know all the music. You are at all the parties, and everybody knows you."

There is always a point in the party where I wouldn't say I have people in the palm of my hands, but when there is a point in the evening... if you have been to any great party, you know when the whole room becomes one.

It's not easy staying relevant in the marketplace.

I am definitely in the right place doing the right thing. These are the rewards.