I honestly don't feel that it's my music that's under-appreciated. I think that it's me that's under-appreciated. As an artist, period.

For those people who want to keep following trends, you do that and when the trend goes away so will you.

I'm 100% real, even when what's real is ugly. I don't take any pride in covering up, hiding and lying.

There wasn't a lot of R&B cats doing songs at 120 beats per minute before 'Closer,' which I take full credit and responsibility for. That's all good, but it was an experiment. You experiment with something, if it goes good, cool, but you never forget where you come from and R&B is where I come from.

An idea that will translate really well musically should work visually. I try to write music that you can feel if you were to close your eyes you can see what I am talking about.

My mom was the picture of the blue-collar mom: Two and three and four jobs to make sure that me and my sister never needed, that was her thing

Prince is the ultimate performer. Prince is that dude that's going to get on stage by himself, if he need to, but hold you in the palm of his hand. Like, you can't take your eyes off the man when he's on stage, and he could just be sitting there playing his guitar.