You can rebel against everything adults say. When I want to find out what the new music is, I find out what parents hate.

I was at the Apollo Theater all the time, skipping school, and I worked in a barbershop. That's how I started with doo-wop. Now I've come full circle. I did all kinds of music. I used to work on Broadway and Tin Pan Alley.

Whoever controls the flow of information dictates our perceptions and perspectives; whoever controls the news shapes our destiny.

Absorb youth and you will be absorbed by youth. Take on new influences without fear and you need not fear what is new. Change the people around you by changing the people around you.

Hip-hop is getting to the point now where they are going to start sounding like Al Jarreau or Bobby McFerrin or some of the other poets. Some of the better rappers can rap real fast without even melodies. It'll get to that same point.

Free your mind and your ass will follow

I used to skip school to go there when I was growing up in Newark, ... I saw the Flamingos, the Heartbeats, Jackie Wilson, Chuck Jackson.