I mean, look at the people we celebrate - a lot of people who really don't do anything. They just walk the red carpets and go to all the parties, and they're hooked up with the right people, so they're celebrities. But what for?

Eventually you're going to have a digital transfer anyway when you make a CD, so it doesn't matter as long as what you're hitting first is what you want it to be.

I fell in love with Paris the first time I went.

My mother always told me to embrace both sides of my background. And she also taught me one very useful thing when I was going to first grade. She said, "You're Bahamian and African-American on one side, and Russian-Jewish on the other. You're no more one than the other, and it's beautiful that you have all this. It makes your life all the more rich. But society will see you only as black."

Confusion makes people uncomfortable. They can't put their finger on me.

At 10 o'clock in the morning I'd go right in the studio. It feels good to be there in the morning before the day starts to mess with you - I don't mean in a negative way, but before I'd speak to a lot of people or get into anything, I'd go in there and just see what I felt. A lot happens in the morning for me in the studio.

I was in Paris last year, where there's a great appreciation of many different aspects of African culture and of black culture. The music... the art... whatever... And I kind of went with that.