I've met every freak in the business.
I guess hip-hop has been closer to the pulse of the streets than any music we've had in a long time. It's sociology as well as music, which is in keeping with the tradition of black music in America.
After I learned the piano, I went on to learn percussion, the tuba, b-flat baritone, French horn, trombone, trumpet, most of the instruments in the orchestra. Trumpet was my instrument.
Young people should travel, and they don't. You can't know if you don't go.
I found this out over the years, that racism is a thinly veiled disguise over economics and money. It really is.
Music in movies is all about dissonance and consonance, tension and release.
I'm a great believer in letting lyrics just flow out, wherever they come from.
Working with kids in Soweto in South Africa, it's rough out there. But the bottom line is you've got to go to know. In Cambodia, there are 10,000 landmines. Same in Afghanistan, same in Colombia. I'm totally addicted to traveling.
Every day, my daddy told me the same thing. 'Once a task is just begun, never leave it till it's done. Be the labour great or small, do it well or not at all.'