Lately I've been going to all these high schools talking to the students, answering their questions, listening to what they have to say. It has been an incredible journey to be around them and try to give them what my mother gave me.

When I write a song, I tap into the emotion and the feeling and then I use the emotion to write the words. It's the opposite when I act. I use the words and tap into the emotion.

I am more spiritual than religious.

Mos Def is one of the most creative, intelligent human beings I've had the opportunity to work with. He is fun. The entire time, he would go in and out of different characters, just for the fun of it. Awesome energy.

Africa doesn't leap on you immediately; it seeps slowly, and it's incredibly important to be respectful and humble there.

I'm a secret interior decorator. There's a mural on my dining room wall of the railroad tracks at 30th Street Station in Philadelphia. I love having my hometown with me out here in California.

All I have to do is be me on stage. But acting, I have to be someone else, and walk how they would walk and blink how they would blink. I used to talk about it bad like, 'Aw man, that person made $10 million a movie?' But now I understand why they do. I get it now.