When I was growing up, we dressed up for church.

Growing up in an Italian family, we used our body to convey a message.

People come to a show, then they go back to their neighborhood, and it has become like word-of-mouth. Everybody loves to turn somebody on to something. It kind of just snowballed.

I like Las Vegas because it kind of gives me a chance to gauge my material in front of a very diverse group of people. There are a lot of different people in the audience, and you can kind of get a barometer for how your material plays throughout the country.

My family is full of musicians, and a couple of times a year we get together and jam at my cousin's studio. We improvise and have a great time.

My mother made me take piano lessons, and because I am her oldest and she had not yet been worn down by the task of prodding five children to practice every day, she kept me practicing despite my whining.

I like simple things. I like being in my family in the South and playing petanque.

One of my earliest memories is walking up a muddy road into the mountains. It was raining. Behind me, my village was burning. When there was school, it was under a tree. Then the United Nations came. They fed me, my family, my community.