Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for anyone who has the nerve to even attempt to do music today, but this is just about what excites me.

An opened mind will eventually lead to a more well rounded artist and this will thus heightenen his or her level of professionalism.

Don't get me wrong, I have the utmost respect for anyone who has the nerve to even attempt to do music today, but this is just about what excites me.

I feel like kids that grew up in New York City or in L.A. were exposed to all these subcultures and subgenres, whereas I was only exposed to the poppiest of pop music so I never had this negative connotation towards pop music. That's not South African music having an effect on me, but just how international music was filtered through South Africa affected me. It gave me a not-negative connotation towards pop music growing up.

When I start working on an idea, I immediately record without judging it.

The moment you're too apologetic about something and people know that something isn't finished, they listen/look for the mistakes or cracks, but if you act like it's done people experience things in a totally different way.

A pretty pivotal moment for me was having a songwriting class with Paul McCartney when I was at LIPA, and then being called in a few days later by the headmaster of the school to tell me that Paul McCartney likes what I'm doing.