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.

I don't feel like that many musicians are competitive with each other.

If you want the film [La La Land ] to represent all things jazz, it does not. You'll be disappointed by that. But, if you just see it as one guy's point of view, one filmmaker's point of view, and one story among many stories that can be told about jazz, then it's not as much of an issue.

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

I'm used to getting sexy sometimes in the lyrics.

You see all these things that make you feel desperate or sad, but you realize changes can be made, and it doesn't take a lot of money on our part to make a change in people's lives.

Music, to me, if it's good, it's good. That's all that matters.