I think blues music is music of the soul. Of course, there are other forms. You could call some classical music blues music in that way.

Well, I don't really concern myself too much with what other people make of my work.

What Rare [albom] allows me to do is gonna show people other things that I'm capable of 'cause they really haven't heard a lot of things outside of the rap stuff that I do.

I think of myself as a songwriter, a weaver of story and imagination in a way that a novelist might write a book.

There's so much you can do with laying words on a bed of music. You can completely change their meaning with the type of music or the way they're sung.

I like things that are beaten up, that have lived a little. I like things that are real. I like things that are made out of wood or string. I never feel very responsive to plastic machinery.

I just love having no clothes on outside, and the only time to do that is when the sun's shining. It's a wonderful sensation to not have any clothes on.