I think it surprises a lot of people that I'm still around, you know, still - that I'm not pushing up daisies, as they say.

You have to choose whether to love yourself or not.

I think good music makes you feel free, and if people feel free when they come to a show or listen to my music, that would mean the world to me.

Somehow it helps just to take something that's internal and externalize it, to see it in front of you.

It's the nature of human consciousness to look for trouble constantly, and we find it. We find it.

I think that American music, for me, it's a synthesis of a lot of different things. But for me growing up in North Carolina, the stuff that I was listening to, the things that I was hearing, it was all about Black music, about soul music.

Being on a boat that's moving through the water, it's so clear. Everything falls into place in terms of what's important and what's not.