I am not trying to change the world. I am just offering my gift that God gave me, and if somebody is moved by it, that's beautiful.

I come in with this rock 'n' roll-oriented music, and it's not black enough . . . I've always had to deal with this black-white thing.

You can be around 100 people and be completely alone. People don't realize what it's really like.

So that's why you've got to try, you got to breath and have some fun. Though I'm not paid, I play this game, and I won't stop until I'm done. But what I really want to know is - Are you gonna go my way?

People see my photos and think I labor over my image and I'm this cool, brooding artist. But I'm just having fun with it.

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.

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.