In the course of my career, which has been an incredible rollercoaster ride, I look at the journey and think it's been immense.

When you first come out of the box, you want to play the 300-capacity place, then it's 1,600-capacity, then it's an arena - so, do you want to be in a stadium now? The ego keeps telling you that it's not enough.

I grew up on dancehall music, and it holds a strong place in my heart.

When I write a song, I get the melody right first, and then hopefully I can back it up with a lyric that has to respect the melody.

If you have a sense of yourself, your mission, your belief system, those things will lead you to success.

In the scriptures, we are told you can't really understand happiness unless you understand sadness. You don't know pleasure if you don't know pain. It's part of life. So can you learn something from somebody who has gone from success to success to success? I don't think so.

I've spent a lot of time in L.A. and I love it. A lot of Brits can't stand the place, but I like the West Coast attitude and the way people celebrate success.

It's a strange failure of the literary world that Updike never quite received his due. Despite winning two Pulitzers and two National Book Awards and countless other awards and honours, he was denied the Nobel.