I only want to be associated with music that is high quality. That's my main criteria.

There are more black men incarcerated today than there were slaves in 1850.

I have a great band, with very talented players, and we give everything we have every night.

I think it's not enough for us to extend the hand of love. I think it's important that that goes both ways. It's important also that we look at policies we need to change as well.

In terms of the technology I use the most, it's probably a tie between my Blackberry and my MacBook Pro laptop. That's how I communicate with the rest of the world and how I handle all the business I have to handle.

I'm trying to be me and embrace all the parts of me that have grown up, listened to more music and soaked up more influences.

You have to be careful when it comes to copyrights, whether just sounding like or feeling like something is enough to say you violated their copyrights because there's a lot of music out there, and there's a lot of things that feel like other things that are influenced by other things. And you don't want to get into that thing where all of us are suing each other all the time because this and that song feels like another song.