I grew up in Tennessee, and if you didn't play football, you were a sissy. I got slurs all the time because I was in music and art...I was an outcast in a lot of ways...but everything that you get picked on for or you feel makes you weird is essentially what's going to make you sexy as an adult.

Kate Moss. She looks good in anything. She would look good in one of your t-shirts, in her t-shirt, in a man's suit, in a huge gown. She looks amazing naked. She even makes nude look stylish. That, to me, is a style icon. She could put a barrel on and it would be some sort of statement.

I’m sure there’s some self-help cheese-ball book about the gray area, but I’ve been having this conversation with my friends who are all about the same age and I’m saying, ‘Y’know, life doesn’t happen in black and white.’ The gray area is where you become an adult the medium temperature, the gray area, the place between black and white. That’s the place where life happens.

I really didn't try to make an effort to make urban music, but I am a product of my inspirations.

I will always come with something that's aesthetically pleasing.

There was a point in my teenage years, when we were starting to play bigger shows and females were running after tour buses and all that, and my mom - and I remember this like it was yesterday - said: 'Look, I want you to know that I couldn't be prouder of you. You are extraordinary. You move people. But it doesn't make you better than them. You still put your pants on the same way as them, one leg at a time every morning.' I thought about learning to jump right into them, just to mess with her. But what she said stuck with me, and I think it's true.

The Grammys used me for ratings. And they were up 18 percent!