Witnessing the extreme poverty in remote parts of Affrica can make you feel sad and powerless until you realize how little it takes to change these people's lives fundamentally in sustainable ways.

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

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.

I want to make a better record than I made the last time. I want to grow. I want to discover new things about myself creatively.

I never went through a period where I didn't want to play music. I've always loved it and it's always been a huge part of my life.

I spent a lot of time, a lot of energy trying to be a better artist and I still [do]. I spend a lot of time focusing on my craft. If you're going to take your passion into something beyond just something for fun on the side, you got to spend a lot of time on it to be great, and then you've got to make smart decisions about who you collaborate with [and] where you live [to] put yourself in the right situations to meet the right people to catch those breaks.

I care more about the fans in general, just making sure they enjoy what I do. And then also I kind of had this kind of ideal of the kind of music I want to make and what I'm aiming for kind of creatively and just the quality of the music that I'm trying to make. And I have that in my head.