My own style influences have to do with where I grew up, in the Bronx, and I still like to wear bangles and big hoops!

You can't take life for granted.

You get to a point in life where it suddenly occurs to you that you don't need all the things you once thought you did--that it's really, well, convoluted. My life feels overblown sometimes, and I don't want it to be. I want it to be streamlined. So I'm living a much more unscripted life now than I have in a long time.

I can only speak for myself, and hope people hear my words and see me on television speaking for myself. And, hopefully, they'll be able to make their own judgment. And at the end of the day, I just want my work to speak for itself.

With hard work, living a good life, you can do anything. You will be rewarded for that.

The rise of salsa was such an important time in musical history, not just in Latin music but music in general, because these guys created a new sound.

The weirdest thing about me is that I like to walk around naked. I grew up walking around naked in my house. My mom was like that, and my sisters. My father worked nights and slept during the day, so we had no one to hide from.