It's important for me to go back into the ghetto, where I'm from. I still get my oxygen from there. I don't live in the ghetto but every time I go back, I'm seeing the same things that I lived. That's one of the things I mean when I say, "My feet back onto the ground."

It was the vehicle that propelled me to international stardom. ("Harder They Come") I was known as a singer/songwriter before that, but people did not know me as an actor. It showed the world where the music I contributed to create was coming from. It opened the gates for Jamaican music, internationally.

We need that expression. Whether we want to call it protest or not, we need to express and echo the echoes of the people. Artists need to do that.

In the country, people are kind. In the city, people are hard an' cold, like the concrete and steel.

Everyone needs to realize why am I here? It comes in everyone's life; you ask why am I here? What am I doing? Once you are able to answer that question for yourself honestly, you have smooth sailing.

I don't think a songwriter should lose their mojo. In my situation, I'm one of those artists that lasts over a long period rather than have your moment and your moment is gone.

I write songs on a universal basis. I was born out of the earth of Jamaica which I consider to be a part of Atlantis, the sunk continent, but that's my thing. But I write songs on a universal basis, not like Jamaican songs.