I think when the music and the product is amazing, people buy it.

I believe in the synergy and sharing platforms.

I'm usually writing or producing for other people. I'm like Burger King most of the time; I let people have it their way like "You want it like this? I'll give it to you like this."

Prince didn't want to sound like Michael Jackson. Neither of them wanted to sound like Luther Vandross. They didn't want to sound like David Bowie. They were all different, but brilliant.

People are getting record deals and they can barely sing. We have these new terms for artists that can dance, but they can't sing.

I just encourage everyone to make real music and it will fuel the engine and the machine. Just make it real and put your heart into it. Don't make it because you heard someone on the radio.

The major labels, they roll with whatever is making money. I don't know if R&B turned into making banjo music and it sounded like blue grass, they'll buy it if it's selling.

If you're going to be called a musicianship, you have to be able to play.

I want to make music that I know that ten years from now, you can put it on and say "This is a great record".

The one thing I always loved about Michael Jackson: he had fun records, but he's also going to make some important statement with the music as well. He's not going to forsake the culture.

You can't say that people don't love music anymore because they do. If we say that all the music stopped, if music stops now, the world can't handle that. We need our music.

Nothing is real.

My mind is my canvas

...you want things to remain the same, which they never can, and so you’re wounded by your own feelings & resentful others don’t seem to care...

[W]e are none of us very good at silence. It says too much.

It is a truth universally acknowledged that a man in possession of a warm house and a well-stocked fridge must be in want of a cat.

Children need love especially when they do not deserve it.

Forgiveness doesn't make the situation OK, it makes you OK.

Going to Catholic school was what fueled me into comedy. The nuns were so brutal so I used to try to make my friends laugh.

I’m beginning to know myself. I don’t exist. I’m the space between what I’d like to be and what others made of me. Just let me be at ease and all by myself in my room.

Everybody does not have to like you. That is not their job. Liking you is not anyone's purpose in life except yours.