Music is almost mystical to me. It really has an incredibly powerful force.

I hold 'Mi Tierra,' my first Spanish-language album, very close to me because that was all done in my native tongue and won me my first Grammy.

My mom was definitely very strict with me.

To know that everything we say and do to this new little human being may have a profound effect on him or her is a daunting obligation.

Family has always been the number one priority no matter what happens anywhere else.

In Europe there's the upper crust, and these are long, historically families and social systems that have certain established rules that's harder to break into.

I wrote poetry, which got me into lyrics. Stevie Wonder, Carole King, Elton John pulled me into pop. I started singing with a band - just for fun - when I was 17. And pretty soon, I was thinking I could sing pop in English as well as Spanish.