You need to open up so that more comes through. And you can just feel that when your ego is not in the way and when you're letting it be what it wants to be. You have to let it be what it wants to be as opposed to what you think it should be.

There's nothing more that we love than having a close, personal, open relationship, and I believe that's what God wants.

I was an actor when I was a teenager and it could have been the direction that I headed in. But music and my relationship with music is quite deep, and it really is the nucleus of my creativity. So I gave up acting so I could pursue music fully, and I never thought about really going back. And then [director] Lee Daniels met me and wanted to work with me, and that's how it started.

What motivates it is life. Life is everything. Life influences my music and brings it forth. Life is always changing, so I'm always hearing new music.

I don't go to church so much, the way my life is, but it's in me every day.

I knew Slash in high school, but not very well. Just knew him as this kid that used to hang out in the hallway. Pretty much looked then the way he does now.

I basically camped out for a year and a half in an Airstream trailer on the beach out in front of the studio. I had no idea what I was gonna do, what kind of album I was gonna make - all I knew was that I wanted to sit there and just take in whatever came.