I think children have talent and insight, but it gets beaten out of them.

My father is a chemist, my mother was a homemaker. My parents instilled in us the feeling that learning was the most exciting thing that could happen to you, and it never ends.

Going to the library was the one place we got to go without asking for permission. And they let us choose what we wanted to read. It was a feeling of having a book be mine entirely.

I grew up in Ohio, where civil-rights accomplishments had already begun to accelerate before Martin Luther King appeared. In hindsight, we know that many people, black and white, were instrumental in changing the Jim Crow status quo on all levels.

The ambition and focus that propel you to success can also be your downfall.

A lot of people considered my career as an artist largely over. Two albums got shelved. But I've made music since I was a little kid, and for the majority of that time, I wasn't paid for it. So I will always be making it.

Any creation of art is conceived and born under influences, amidst the atmosphere of reverie and the most customary volition of the artist. It is there, in any case, that his work arises from.

Everyone has their own journey, and for me, going from singing background to writing songs has truly opened doors for me and has also helped me find myself as an artist in terms of what I want to say and the style of music I want to have.