When I'm writing, those ideas are seldom inspired by music itself. I won't often listen to an artist and come up with an idea.

I went to this boy's choir school when I was growing up, and I think that the first time that I consciously started making music was when this one kid joined our class. He was an amazing pianist and would come up with all these ideas. I've always had a really competitive side, so I saw him doing that, and was like, "I have to try writing songs as well."

Musically, some of the acts that I've really been identifying with are: Fleetwood Mac, Roxy Music, Vangelis, Jean-Michel Jarre, Earth, Wind & Fire, in general music that seems to have a lot of romance to it and a certain glamorous idealism.

The racial conversation in the States is so multifaceted and multilayered. Obviously it's not always a positive conversation, but it's just so much more detailed than it was when I was growing up in South Africa.

[My mother] was the one who encouraged me constantly and always reminded me that God gave me a talent and I have to use it. I should not keep it locked inside.

I was very conceptual about what I was doing; I had the first five albums planned out, and all the songs on every album, and the artwork. I always had these ambitious musical projects in mind.

I must say that the first person to realise that I was talented in art was my mother.