There will always be a replacement coming along very soon - a newer version, a crazier version, a louder version. So if you haven’t got a long-term plan, then you are merely a passing phase, the latest trend, yesterday’s event.

In Jamaica we had the English way of schooling from the age of four, so when I got to America I was already a few years advanced because I started school at the age of three-and-a-half rather than six and my grades moved up accordingly. In America, they start you at school at six because the grades are different. I had to take a test and they didn't know what to do with me. It wasn't that I was any smarter; I had just started younger. All of a sudden I was jumped from eighth to tenth grade. They said I was very smart, but I was only smart in languages, really.

I don't think 'pop' should mean that you had no talent.

Now when I enter a carriage, it almost empties. But there's always one brave enough to stay.

I didn't think I had a voice at all, and I still think of myself as an interpreter of songs more than a singer. I thought it was too deep; people thought I was a man. I had a very strong Jamaican accent, too; the accent really messed me up for auditions.

Music has its own depths, and I let it take me where it takes me, even if it means stripping all my clothes off.

For some reason, I can inspire things that are in good taste, but then sometimes I can also inspire, like, wooooow. Some producers have this really sexual idea, and they're like, "Now I can do this, with her!" And I will just go: non, non, non. That's not me, it's you. You're projecting, man.