Sometimes I'll write a song first and then I'm like, "Oh this person will be great on this song." But there are some artists I know what want, like off the top I knew I wanted Brandy and Faith Evans. Their music is like the soundtrack to my life, so it was a personal thing for me. So once they said yes, I wrote songs specifically for them.

For the most part, 99 percent of jazz is boring; you've heard it before. People aren't doing anything creative that's extremely modern. They tend to always be like "Let's do a tribute to Miles Davis!" All the new albums are tributes to history. It becomes too much at a certain point, it leaves us waving like "Hello? I'm alive, I'm here!" You know? So I really do feel like it needs some spice, it needs to be relevant to today's times, today's people, today's sound.

Instead of hearing, "Oh, he's good," I'd rather hear, "Wow, you changed my feelings today, you made me feel different."

I grew up in church. That's how most young African American musicians learn how to perform. You could be six years old and playing organ or drums in front of thousands or hundreds of people.

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.

I do feel a responsibility because most people like me that are my age or younger, they don't quite make it over to the jazz side. They flirt with it, but they don't quite marry it.

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.