It's not easy staying relevant in the marketplace.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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."