My career has been a gradual climb. I think that’s part of the reason why I’ve had longevity.
Are things getting better with each generation? Yes. It’s quite interesting to be living in these times, for me to witness an African-American being elected president. It’s quite extraordinary.
The image that the public gets is whatever they perceive it to be. Everybody has an opinion, everybody has their own vision, so I don’t know what my public image is. I have no idea.
I couldn’t tell you what I am going to do next ’cause I have no idea, but I am open to anything.
That’s a big gift when people say to you that a song helped them or brought them to some place in their life where they needed to be.
I started out making furniture because I couldn’t find certain things, and then I really got into it.
The story that I wanna tell is pretty much about the way I grew up. Being bi-racial, growing up in a big city and being an artist.
I’m always sort of reflecting on what I do on what I’ve done. Usually before I make a new album, I’ll listen to the previous albums just to see where I’ve been.
Every night is different, you never know what it’s going to be like. I remember every night. I don’t like to compare them.
You can be around 100 people and be completely alone. People don’t realize what it’s really like.
I just need to know that I did the very best I could and that I was true to myself.
People see my photos and think I labor over my image and I’m this cool, brooding artist. But I’m just having fun with it.
We’re getting so pulled in by computers and technology, and our kids have their face in the computers all day. The human relationship is being diminished by this.
I do my best to try to keep God with me on a personal level. It’s my belief that God really wants a personal relationship with us.
The image is an image.
I’ve woken up from dreams and the whole song is there. I’m listening to it in my dreams. I consciously have to wake myself up and get a tape recorder because I hear it like a record.
I’ve always been into films. I’ve been offered lots of films but they’ve always been these very stereotypical roles. They wanted me to play some gangster or street guy, or pimp, drug addict.
Personal relationship with God is not all just the ceremony and not the religion of doing something because you were told that’s what you have to do; it’s relationships, it’s like we have relationships with our families, with our friends, with our loved ones.
God is always in my life, and that’s the most important thing to me.
I identify more with women than with men. I guess I have a strong feminine side.