I'm coming from a Ginuwine and Usher background: slow and smooth songs. And that's why I really connected to Sam Cooke, because he was just very smooth. It's not like the James Brown types, which is all great stuff, but he was totally set apart from those guys.

Because my career has gone so fast, I haven't been able to become confident.

I knew I had a gift. I wanted the world to hear my music, and I wanted it to be my career, but I didn't know how to go about it.

The thought of me not having to clock in for a job anymore is something that I can't really put into words, aside from 'amazing' and 'awesome.'

When you're an artist, you're generally working at home alone in a studio. It's just really good to get with other guys and make art something you can share.

Novels aren't pedagogical instruments, or instructions in law or physics or any other discipline. A novel has to be an emotional experience, a trip of the imagination, and because science has raised so many issues that concern and affect humans, it's a good starting place for me.

I don't have to work on it. I'm naturally a writer. The rapping and writing, they can go hand-in-hand - but rapping is an art that you have to practice and master, so I worked at it for a long time.

The growth of art seems to be in cycles, and often its vigorous lifetime is restricted to a century or two. The periods of distinctive drama, Greek, English, Spanish, fall within such a limit; the schools of painting and sculpture likewise; and, in poetry, the Victorian age or the school of Pope will serve as examples.