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.

Everyone has to make their own decisions. I still believe in that. You just have to be able to accept the consequences without complaining.

Disco was like the celebration of music through dance and my God! When you heard the music sometimes it was like, if you don't get up and dance, you aren't human!

I never thought I was going to be a singer. That was an accident.

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.

It was very painful combing my hair. My grand-uncle was a Pentecostal bishop, and he was very strict: our hair couldn't be permed or straightened. So I just cut it all off.

I just go with the flow, I follow the yellow brick road. I don't know where it's going to lead me, but I follow it.