Growing up in Houston, the music scene is super boring.
I'm not going to do anything crazy, but I want to do music that I'm passionate about. I'm finally at an age where I can do the music that I grew up loving, which was urban pop, '90s music. I grew up listening to the divas, so I'm very happy to finally do urban pop. I hope that it's received well, and it has been so far.
I see my fans as music lovers. I really love that. There's no age group or demographic. It's people of all ages and backgrounds. Country people and non-country people. I wanted to make music across the board.
Usually when I write a song, I'll write the music and then kind of fit some words to it.
The whole thing about 'progressive R&B' blows my mind. Black music has always been progressive.
I have four older siblings and one younger, and all three of my brothers are in the music industry. My dad was really involved in music, too, with the disco, and he also started Radio Caroline and was the one who invented pirate radio, if you like, off on a coast in England on a boat.
I believe that blues and jazz are the two uniquely American contributions into music.
I basically taught myself how to DJ, but I've been inspired by DJs throughout my whole career. I have some good friends that would hook us up with music. You learn some little things here and there from each DJ and you just take it and put your own style into to it.
Popular music has always had its really horrendous stuff.
I pride myself on having a really authentic music sound: no gimmicks, just my vocals.
That's what I was trying to say when we were talking about sound. I think that every person, whether they play music or don't play music, has a sound - their own sound, that thing that you're talking about.
What's so wonderful about the street is it's organic music. No preservatives. There's no other reason to be out there except you just love music and want to play.
Even now, at 82 years old, if I don't learn something every day, you know what I think? It's a day lost. Now, I don't practice every day. I just take the guitar, swear at it. But I should be swearing at myself. But I fool with music. I'm doing something musically all the time. And my ears are wide open for anything I can hear.
When I started writing music on the guitar, it started off very folky because of my limited ability to play. It was slow, soft melodies. But then, as I got better on the guitar, I started exploring different sounds.
My music is about where I am at the time. In 'Raymond vs. Raymond,' I was going through a lot of things, and it came out in my music. My marriage fell apart, and I was suddenly a single father.
My phone is key. This is because I like listening to music, and often, not travelling with it would be a killer. I also love my bed, but unfortunately I can't travel with it, but if I could I would.
I'm trying to find the balance and do, like, 'Spanglish' music or some songs in Spanish and others in English or do a translation.
I want to expand jazz; I don't want to keep the audience limited. I want to reach people who have never come to a jazz concert before. One way to do that is by making records that have a lot of different kinds of music on them.
The first record I ever listened to was Elvis Presley, and I remember thinking, 'Man this guy is cool!' The swagger he had really helped my confidence, because he really made me think that a white boy could make music like this.
To be honest, the biggest reason I write music and became a musician was to create the amount of joy that I felt about music to anyone else. To me, that's a job well done.
I don't do much press. I don't like to talk about my music too much before I do it.
My mother had no idea that her daughter would turn out to be a writer, but she would not let me go through a day of my childhood without music.
I'd like to be remembered as a keeper of the flame who kept traditional music alive, because I've been doing that twice as long as I was in the Byrds.
When I'm writing for certain instruments, you want to write within what you know about that instrument but also challenge the player. Something like 'Aheym' is very virtuosic - but because I have a history of performing music, I don't like unplayable music.
I love my complexion, but like so many of us, in the early years at primary school, I grew up thinking that my dark skin wasn't a great thing. I've found freedom in music and songwriting, which has given me a freedom in how I present myself. I'm glad I've got makeup to celebrate that with.
If things aren't going well, music is what I turn to so I can get away from it, to take my mind somewhere else.
What's interesting is a lot of the older music when we start performing it, it acts a lot like muscle memory. It's kind of like riding a bike. For me as a singer, I just had to remember like what part of my face I sang that into.
I never minded giving my opinions. They are just opinions, and I had studied music and I had strong feelings. I was happy for my opinions to join all the other opinions. But you have to be prepared for what comes back, especially if you don't agree with the dominant mythology.
I can't choose a favorite musician, because I love music so much that whatever/whomever I'm listening to at that moment is my favorite.
You have an entire generation of kids who grew up with the idea that music is something that you can download for free.
At art college, I started to do music and then painting and drawing - and that would have been my ideal life, to be an artist and be paid for it, to be able to create stuff. I realized it was difficult, but I don't know if I had the application for it.
I'm just glad that there's some diversity in the music industry with women so people know that you can be literally anything and still be able to make it.
As a composer, I know that all sorts of sounds I hear are making their way into my brain and soul and later sneak into my music.
I know my music is going well when I don't have insomnia.
Music is the voice that tells us that the human race is greater than it knows.
I've tried writing with music on, but I find it distracting.
