I just lived it and did my own thing without looking over my shoulder. I think I'm very lucky, considering when I started everything, and the fact that I have a masters in music, and I've always worked in music, and that's what I wanted to do.

I grew up in a community that was bilingual. I've done it for a while, singing in both languages.

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.

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

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.

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.

Even before I became a recording artist, I did other things in music. I was a teacher, I did studio work, and I was an arranger and a producer.