Having a college degree gave me the opportunity to be... well-rounded. Also, the people I met at the university, most of them are still my colleagues now. People I've known for years are all in the industry together.

I grew up speaking both languages, and for me that's really important.

A real active music set, based and really concentrated on what the music's all about. That's what I'm all about - singing and a really good strong music set.

And my career, the things that have happened have happened because of my music education background.

I might be a Cuban American, but I'm also an Afro-Cuban American.

I was a teacher for a long time. I taught at a community college: voice, theory, humanities. And nowadays, music education is a dying thing. Funding is being cut more and more and more.

If you write songs and if you write music that's very sincere and very honest, it's pop music, but it is pop music with a lot of honesty and a lot of heart.