I have a cultured manner of speaking.

My name sounds French but that's just a stage name.

I demand perfection in what I do, and I practice very hard before I give a concert-sometimes three to six hours a day.

Everything that happened to me as a child involved music. It was part of everyday life, as automatic as breathing.

By the time I was eight I was taking classical piano lessons and I wanted to be a concert pianist. But that didn't work out. I graduated from high school and my formal education ended.

From the beginning, it has been a no-no for a black man to touch a white woman.

I don't like to go to strange places. I was in Italy for about five hours on my way to Africa.