When I hear the words jazz pianist, that just means I have the skills to do most things. Because to be a jazz pianist, even to be a bad jazz pianist, you have to be pretty good.

Everybody's not going to like jazz, let's just be honest about it. Everybody doesn't like everything. There's a disconnect in generations and some people just aren't going to feel that music.

I think the people who are saying jazz has to sound a particular way, or "what you're doing isn't jazz," are just scared because they can't do it. A lot of them just aren't talented enough to do anything new, honestly. It's the people who are talented enough and who have the open mind and who are forward-thinkers are the ones who are doing something new. You tend to hate on what you can't produce.

A lot of times, jazz musicians try to educate people. What other genre does that?

That's a skill that I'm proud of: to be able to be a jazz musician and go a bit crazy sometimes and other times be able to pull it all in and lay it down like a track.

If I was a singer who won those Grammys, I'd be gracing all the magazine covers... I barely got asked to do an interview.

My fan base is extremely random. It's the 14-year-old white kid sitting next to your auntie from St. Luke's Baptist Church, to the 20-year-old Black girl who probably would go to a Rihanna concert, but she's coming to my show.