I planned my success. I knew it was going to happen.

• No one chooses to raise children alone.
• I'm free. I just do what I want, say what I want, say how I feel, and I don't try to hurt nobody. I just try to make sure that I don't compromise my art in any kind of way, and I think people respect that.
• The music business is motivated by money. Music is motivated by energy and feelings.
• Man, I don't want to have nothing to do with computers. I don't want the government in my business.
• Music and the music business are two different things.
• But now I realize that this record business really needs me. No one else is trying to take a chance or do something different.
• What does music mean to me? I don't think I would really be much without it, without it coming through me. It's my means of communication, my means of growth, my means of transportation from one point in my life to another.
• Man, I don't want to have nothing to do with computers. I don't want the government in my business.
• I have the ability to sing with emotion and feeling, but if you say I sound like Billie Holiday, that's cool. Let's look at who Billie was: she was this person, this singer, this beautiful diva who could move the audience with the slightest gesture of her hand.
• Artists need some kind of stimulating experience a lot of times, which crystallizes when you sing about it or paint it or sculpt it. You literally mold the experience the way you want. It's therapy.