I would love to see no more ghettos but the things is, there's no diplomacy in the ghetto. They want to tell you something, they tell you straight!

In hindsight, I see the great value of family and how it moulded my life and kept me together. So now family means everything to me.

Certain artists have a role to echo the echoes of the people and that's what I'll be doing on my next album.

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

If you go out to Hollywood you'll find a lot of fantastic plastic people there in the business and a lot of people in life generally. They find it so hard to be themselves that they have to be plastic.

I've abused myself a lot over the years. But my voice is still intact - really, it's better.

I was a songwriter and I've written some good songs, but there are lots of greater songs that I know I have inside yet to come out.