It's not easy staying relevant in the marketplace.

I believe it also says that I am a friend to everyone and enemy to no one.

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.

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 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.

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