It's not easy staying relevant in the marketplace.

I used to tell myself when I was much younger that I didn't want to wake up one day and be 32 years old and still playing records. It's just not going to happen. Well, the joke is on me, because I'm 56 years old now.

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.

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

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."

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.