I don't want kids listening to my music thinking it's for their parents. I want them to feel it's theirs.

My dad calls me 'Mac' a lot, from 'Mike Tyson's Punch Out' - Little Mac is the main character. I was obsessed. I can still beat Mike Tyson on 'Punch Out.'

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.

I really love rap music. I grew up in the '80s and '90s with Public Enemy, N.W.A., LL Cool J - I'm a hip-hop encyclopedia. But I got kind of frustrated with the chauvinistic side of rap music, the one that makes it hard to write songs about love and relationships.

I make soul music for hip-hop heads. It's music I'd want to sample if I were a rapper.

I was really fortunate growing up to have a broad musical education. My parents listened to all kinds of music, rock, soul, Motown, jazz, Frank Sinatra, everything.

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