In our music, in our everyday life, there are so many negative things. Why not have something positive and stamp it with blackness?

I'm bad on Valentine's Day, but even worse on Christmas. I go shopping at nine o'clock on December 24th every year. Nobody else is there. I'm in Toys'R'Us all by myself. I get there five minutes before closing.

Actually, music gave me the support when I needed it. I would never have gone to college unless I'd gotten a piano scholarship. And now I'm so glad I got to learn to play the cello, which is a different experience, you're flexing a different muscle, but it's beautiful because it is music.

Having a stage name is like having a Superman complex. I go into the telephone booth as Eric Bishop and come out as Jamie Foxx.

You gotta have the balls to go out there and be funny, man.

What's weird is when you meet a girl who is 23 and you are talking to her, even her voice is high-pitched, she's young. You ask her how old she is, she says, 'Twenty-three, how old are you?' and when I tell her I'm 41 it's like I've just told her I have cancer. It's, 'Oh my God, how long have you had that?'

Now ballads, I can mess around and get up on somebody on a ballad. People ain't seen it yet, but I can mess around and get up in there. I've had Ruben Studdard up in my house, Brian McKnight, Tank. Every once in a while I throw down with them.