When I'm singing, it's a mixture of my innocence in the projects, my mom and dad. It's all the good and the bad, the laughs and the frowns that I went through and seen other people go through. Then you be trying to write it. Whatever's coming out, you try and make it all cool.

Growing up my mother played Sarah Vaughan and Nat Cole in the house regularly.

Age and numbers are a concept made up by man.

The first time I recorded without Allen Toussaint, I wanted to do doo-wop. Everything I've done since then has got some kind of doo-wop essence in it.