Playing the game, and unfortunately, playing the gangster game is very profitable.

You can study orchestration, you can study harmony and theory and everything else, but melodies come straight from God.

A great song can make a terrible singer sound good, but a good singer - you put a great song on top of that, you're really in great shape!

I got in the school band and the school choir. It all hit me like a ton of bricks, everything just came out. I played percussion for a while, and stayed after school forever just tinkering around with different things, the clarinets and the violins.

Benny [Carter] opened the eyes of a lot of producers and studios, so that they could understand that you could go to blacks for other things outside of blues and barbecue. He's a total musician. He was the pioneer, he was the foundation. He made it possible for that doubt to be taken away.

I've been driven all my life by a spirit of adventure and a criminal level of optimism. I believed in my dreams because they were my only option. The people who make it to the top are addicted to their calling. You have to honor the gift God has given you. The people who get the call are the ones who'd be doing whatever it is they love, even if they weren't being paid.

Not one ounce of my self worth depends on your acceptance of me.