I decided to not be so dismissive of my music in favor of my acting. Acting has been such a consistent thing for me; a lot of times in the past, I wouldn't have had the confidence with my music to really make it a part of my schedule. I would easily push it to the side, or I would easily take up time that was needed for it. I'm not that way anymore. Now, I really want to make everything work. I want to continue to do both at the highest level that I can.

Sometimes things seem too good to be true.

Looking into my future, I don't always want to be in front of the camera. I want to be behind the camera and bring to life those family members of mine or people that I knew or the kids I grew up. I want people to know the different facets of black people, brown people, all people.

If there's a certain song that I want to reach a certain person or certain type of person, that's when I play it for people.

I'm a workaholic, so I ignore the signs of fatigue and just keep going and going, and then conk out when I get home. It can be pretty stressful.

Giving back, doing motivational speeches and stuff like that, that's always made me feel good. If you repeatedly go out there, and you are the change that you want to see, then that's what you are.

You should never look at somebody and say, 'I wish I had their life,' because you never really know what struggles they're going through.