I've always followed politics, and I think politics is everybody's business because we're electing someone who's going to be making important decisions that will affect all of our lives.

Now that I'm coming out with my own record people can see I'm a solo artist.

Music wasn't forced on me [in my childhood]. It was something I wanted to do. And ever since, I've never stopped, I've never stopped playing music.

To me, as a musician, there aren't any boundaries genre-wise as far as what can you listen to to inspire you.

For me, no matter how much money you want to make off of singing, no matter what kind of fame you want to make, achieve, the most important thing to me is making music that you're proud of, making music that comes from you, comes from an authentic place in you.

Kind of the critical acclaim of this movie [La La Land] is that it's striking a chord with the public in a way that has been really beautiful and powerful.

As a young black boy, it made me proud to see black leaders that did something amazing and made the world change.