You have to make a lot of sacrifices, and the main thing you have to sacrifice is your privacy. It's funny because when I was growing up, my daddy was and still is an insurance agent in our home town. He couldn't go anywhere without somebody recognizing him or needing something from him.

One of my favorite places is Seattle. Growing up, I never thought I'd be able to go to Seattle. I grew up in eastern South Carolina, so that's as far as you can get from Seattle, unless I lived in Miami.

Sometimes it feels like I've been in the business forever, but then other times, it feels like kind of a flash. Growing up, all I wanted to do was sing. All I wanted to do was get on a bus and ride around the country and sing for people and be a household name.

I love my boys. I love watching them growing up. I love seeing them develop, and I'm always looking forward to seeing what they're going to become and what they're going to be interested in later in life.

As it turns out, my grandmother, my mother, my wife, and my daughter are all women, and I like those people. I'm concerned about the issues that they face in their lives. So I'm a feminist, but that's not all I am.

I guess it's because I do have a younger audience that, you know, parents worry about the role model thing. But when I was younger, I looked up to people, but I never wanted to be them. I always had my own identity. I'm an entertainer when I'm on stage, and they need to explain that to their kids. That's not my job to do that.

I'm the one person who wears the words 'hustle, loyalty, respect' on my T-shirts and merchandise. My audience is children. It's very flattering to see a kid wear your T-shirt; it's even more flattering to have a dad come up to you and say, 'I watch you with my kid. Keep doing what you're doing. You're a role model for my son.'

When I was a child, doctors sent my grandmother home in a wheelchair to die. Diagnosed with end-stage heart disease, she already had so much scar tissue from bypass operations that the surgeons had essentially run out of plumbing. There was nothing more to do, they said; her life was over at 65.