I listen to all types of different music. I go to different festivals. I'm around music.

You're put in certain situations and it kind of opens up those doors and it opens up your eyes to realize what your true calling was.

Brandy is one of my favorite vocalists. Jay-Z is my favorite emcee outside of Biggie.

I really was kind of like a musical nerd. I would watch VH1's 'Behind The Music.' That was heavy when I was a kid. I would sit up and want to watch that all day instead of going outside sometimes.

A song is a song and a hit record can change a life.

When you're an artist, you can only do your own stuff. Even if you only write for other people, you're really more focused on yourself. So while everybody's out touring, I'm working on records.

There's a bunch of people who sit around and make excuses for themselves and get upset with artists, but you already know what this is - it's an ego-driven business.

I really want to work with Rufus Wainwright. Michael Stipe from R.E.M. I would love to work with Kanye West.

I don't believe in writing people off.

Not to be arrogant, but I have a lot of hits, so my phone stay ringing, but it's consistent.

It's a gift that I have and I became good at it. When I heard my first song I didn't even know that I could write songs.

Question 3: Why should a person study Sufism?Answer: Because he was created to study it

Reality is symbolic. We build it using only the 26 symbols of the alphabet alongside images that speak to us on a linguistic level built from the 26 symbols of the alphabet.

We don't need unity in theory, we need solidarity in practice.

Well, I've read through that handbook for the recently deceased. It says, 'live people ignore the strange and unusual. I, myself, am strange and unusual.

People have compact to go beyond our own culture and upbringing to a degree that I think we don't acknowledge enough really.

Your image isn't your character. Character is what you are as a person.

Noodles are not only amusing but delicious.

Jazz speaks for life. This is triumphant music.

The secrets of life are not shown except to sympathy and likeness.

I'm always perpetually out of my comfort zone.