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

This is ridiculous. It's been months and for some reason I just can't get over us. I'm stronger than this. Enough is enough; no more walking around with my head down, I'm so over being blue crying over you.

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

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.

That is the difference between a good song and a bad song lyrically - if you can listen to it and put yourself in that place, or see that person in that place, normally it is a pretty good song.

I want to write for people that are trying to do some kind of quality music. What I mean by quality music is not so much the trend, what is hot right now. I don't write trendy, I write what feels good and something that feels good will never get old. Timeless music is what I try to shoot for.

What is hot now will not be hot tomorrow, I promise you. Trends are made to die. It's the truth.