I cringed when I heard myself described as a Jazz singer. I've always thought of myself as a Jazz vocalist.

Being black, I'm involved in the reparations movement. It's focused toward the African-American audience. We could begin to heal.

Miles Davis was doing something inherently African, something that has to do with all forms of American music, not just jazz.

I was never interested in singing in the church or school. I was more interested in becoming a musician.

My grandmother sang, too, and she was really loud. It was this wild kind of singing. I count her among my influences.

My father had all kinds of instruments in the house that he would hide from my mother. He bought them through mail order!

Miles Davis was a master. In every phase of his career, he understood that this music was a tribute to the African muse.

I'm always imagining some sort of story behind the song, even the ones I haven't written. I'm actively engaging in playacting.

Everything I do is collaborative. It's just my way. I'm really very interested in how the other musicians perceive the song.

I'm always looking for ways to develop as a Jazz artist, to find different ways of using my voice.

Here, in this quiet place we own, worlds are born.

When students cheat on exams it's because our school system values grades more than students value learning.

Sacrifice begins with sharing.

Raised during Reagan, suffered through Clinton

If Obama has his way, the change that is coming is a new America: "fair," leveled and social democratic. Obama didn't get elected to warranty your muffler. He's here to warranty your life.

I'm very critiqueful of my own stuff, and I kick everybody out the studio when I'm singing, no one is in the studio, it's just me and the engineers, no one else in the studio when I'm doing my thing.

The post office has a great charm at one point of our lives. When you have lived to my age, you will begin to think letters are never worth going through the rain for.

Don’t damage computer systems you break into (including crashing them); don’t change the information in those systems (except for altering logs to cover your tracks); and share information.

How marvellous it would be if, at the end of the day, each of us could say: today I have performed an act of charity towards others!

Why does everyone talk about the past? All that counts is tomorrow's game.

The crucial differences which distinguish human societies and human beings are not biological. They are cultural.