You can't control the success or failure of a thing you work on. You can only control the thing you work on.

I grew up in the time just when cassettes were waning and CDs were growing. And so mix tapes - and not mix CDs - mix tapes were an important part of the friendship and mating rituals of New York adolescents. If you were a girl and I wanted you - to show you I like you, I would make you a 90-minute cassette wherein I would show off my tastes. I would play you a musical theater song next to a hip-hop song next to an oldie next to some pop song you maybe never heard, also subliminally telling you how much I like you with all these songs.

I just remembered when I was an adolescent girl wanting to leave my island and find my calling.

I got to fall in love. I got to win a war. I got to write words that inspired a nation.

Ed Koch once said that New York City is where immigrants come to audition for America. That's what happened to my parents; that's what happened to me.

I am the epitome of coolness.

We sort of quickly realized every rhythm, Opetaia [Foa'i] takes the lead.