I believed in myself and I am a firm believer you have to think the things you want and visualize.

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

My first big break came with Lauryn Hill on a track called Everything is Everything, I played piano on that track way back in 1998.

I want to move people, stir something within them that makes them feel. That's what a movie should do and an actor should do, make you feel something. I think that's why people love films so much.

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.

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... And for me, when I'm making music, it's all in my head, and all those influences in my head. So if something comes to me that's a reference from a different genre then people are used to hearing from me, I'm not afraid to go there with it.

Sometimes I start just on the piano with a melody or musical idea that kind of leads me to certain lyrics.