I'm always looking for just the right song that has something to say.

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.

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'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.

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

I'm of the mind that your private life is private and you don't need to put everything out there about yourself - but on there, I describe myself as a citizen of the world, a man of music.

Well technology has changed a lot of things, making it possible for just about anyone to make music. But not everybody is a songwriter, so that puts me in a completely different ballpark than the other DJs out here that are writing and producing tracks. I don't stop at tracks, I try to complete the whole package with the song. So working at that level has put me in a completely different place.