I was riding my bicycle and I was hit by a Jeep. And the damage that was done to my body was gradually diagnosed, instead of immediately, so the recovery process for me was probably unnecessarily long: It took nearly two years for me to say that I could successfully walk. It was scary. And in a way, when you're faced with something like that, it forces you to change, and very quickly. I think that unconsciously, I felt called to a challenge-a challenge to regain something.

People always ask, "Why jazz?" and I'm like "Why not?" It's kind of like asking Seurat, "Why so many dots?" I imagine if you asked Bjork, "Why the Tibetan bells?" She'd probably be like "That's just what I heard." It's the same thing. This is just the way I see music.

When someone tells you you're not going to walk again and you spend about a year and half on your back, your clothes don't mean much. I was in a robe every day, so I gave everything away - my whole wardrobe, down to the last dress. But at some point I woke up, maybe about four or five months after having done that that, and I thought, "You know what? I really want to try to wear high heels." That's why I wanted to learn to walk. It sounded really stupid but I just wanted to see. That to me was sort of definitive to who I was. So that was my goal.

I learned to play guitar on my lying back while I was bed-ridden. I only thought to record the songs because sometimes I would I couldn't remember what I had just done. Eventually I started singing, because I thought if I sang it that would help to remember even more. But I wasn't trying to sing. And then one day-this is really weird -I just wrote a song. It came out at a rapid rate and I recorded it and I listened back to it and was like "Wow, it's a tune."

I'm a bad walker but I can dance tango. You know why? Put your hand up. Push on my fingertips and just hold it. In tango, your feet are free but the top of your body pushes, so if I feel like I'm gonna fall, my partner can catch me. So I walk with a stick but I can totally dance the tango. It's a romantic kind of thing.

I think that age is irrelevant. We're all pretty much spiritual beings - I consider myself to be about eighty-five. I feel like I'm ancient, like two thousand years old.

The profound nature of our existence is that we are able at any moment to connect to anyone, anywhere. History is there to remind us of how far weve come, and every day our journey is to continue with that progress of becoming more wise, more compassionate and more considerate human beings. Remembering Emmett though song is way to remind people that there is no need to continue with senseless crimes. Race and racism do no go hand in hand. We are only one race: human.