I always felt that rap didn't cause crime; it just reflected it.

I always saw myself as a singer-songwriter, a solo-artist, that's why working with other artists was never satisfying for me.

The best way to fight poverty is to empower people through access to quality education

Mass incarceration is a policy that's kind of built up over the last four decades and it's destroyed families and communities, and something we need to change. And it's fallen disproportionally on black and brown communities, especially black communities, and it's kind of a manifestation of structural racism.

Why wouldn't I help? What good reason do I have as a human being with power and a sense of empathy and morality, why wouldn't I do something?

I listen to all those kinds of music, from classic soul to hip-hop to Brazilian music to, you know, jazz to indie to alternative. So whatever. I listen to all if it. Classic rock and classic pop, all of that.

I wrote the song "Show Me" as a prayer to God asking simple, honest questions about life and death and why there is so much suffering in the world. As I grew with the song I realized I shouldn't limit these questions solely to God; I should ask those questions of others and of myself.