If you want to be successful, you have to be the best person doing it. And in order to be the best person doing it, you have to get your work ethic right and keep going.

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

I feel there is always room for good music. I want to reach people's soul with my lyrics through whatever vessel God chooses.

What I definitely learnt from Michael Jackson is that simple is almost always better. As a songwriter, as an artist period.

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.

For the first few years of my life my mom used to cut my hair so there were a lot of bowl-cut hair styles

There is no pain like the first time you get your heart broken.