In England, in France, in no other country would a black man have a chance to get elected. There's no two ways about it. Our country [USA] has been better about dealing with immigration and people who are different from each other than any other country in the world, that I know of.

More of my songs are intended to be funny than almost anyone else. Sometimes maybe it cheers me up a bit. I've got a distance from it. Sometimes what I'm writing is more important to me than the rest of my life. It's more important to me that I'm writing well than anything else.

He got drunk last night, kicked Mama down the stairs. But I'm alright, so I don't care.

I once had dinner with Madonna and I wasn't nervous but within about a minute I found myself talking about underwear.

The best of my songs are more than just a joke. There's something else going on - a character, or it's not just a plain joke.

It's very hard to get rich and famous at a young age and handle it well.

I've written a song for Prince. I never showed it to Prince, but just to see if I could do it. At the time, when I sort of knew him, he was recording a song a day. I wondered if I could do that. So I wrote it.