I feel like certain people think that certain styles of music will taint their jazz style.

You’ve got to be uncomfortable and rise to different occasions in order to become your best. No one is born a hero, but things happen and your response makes you a hero. It’s instinctual, it’s something that you may not even realize is there.

There is a modern take on certain things you can do that, to me, is still jazz.

It's the repetitive thing that brings space. That's one of the things I love secretly about hip-hop. Jazz doesn't have that element. It changes every bar, nothing is ever the same.

Experiment is actually doing the art. That's the experiment and then you get to experience the experiment.

I feel like certain people think that certain styles of music will taint their jazz style.

It came from my mother. She was a singer, and literally every day of the week she sang at a different club in a different genre of music: country, R&B clubs, jazz clubs, church on Sunday morning where she was the music director, pop hits, soft rock. I grew up listening to all this music, so it was never one thing for me.