While other kids played with cars and toys, I listened to music all day. I wanted to sing it and learn it.

Bob Dylan and John Lennon and Bruce Springsteen, these are soul guys. Bruce Springsteen might not sing like Otis Redding, but he sings with white soul. He's singing and he's writing songs from the bottom of his gut.

I don't like labels, but I do have blue eyes and I'm soulful, so what am I going to do?

My gift and my curse is that I really want to be loved. What drives me to make music is love - whether it's shallow or deep or whatever. I want to do things that make people love me.

I'm trying to create the world around myself to be a place of as much equality and openheartedness as possible.

My songs don't play on pop radio; they play on black radio.

I grew up in a Hollywood family with money, so money is not the reason I make music. I'm as Hollywood as it gets. Not internally but externally - that's my bloodline.