I consider myself to have a decent sense of humor. What's life without a sense of humor?

I just want to have fun and party with everyone around the world. That's the only rule, to have fun.

I DJ all the time, as much as I possibly can. I'll never stop. That's my security blanket, that's what I'm good at. I still consider myself a better DJ than a singer. I can DJ in my sleep.

I never have, but I would love to pick R. Kelly's brain.

Hip-hop was my first real love, one that was my own and wasn't my parents' music. Initially, I was inspired by hip-hop fashion. Over the years, I kept the hip-hop sensibility, but make it my own.

That's one of the most important things to me is that Detroit and Ann Arbor got my back. If you don't have hometown love, then what's the point?

I grew up in the '80s and '90s listening to Public Enemy and Mobb Deep and the Smashing Pumpkins. I don't even know what it was like in the '60s - I wasn't alive then - so the Mayer Hawthorne sound is taking what I can learn from the classics, and blending it with my hip-hop DJ and producer background and punk-rock bands that I played in as a kid.