“I started off making beats when I was like 12. Then when I linked with people who make beats full time, I was like, ‘Bet, now I can focus on writing and singing.’”

I work while I’m on the move, so I’m able to book sessions in different cities.

If you can look in the mirror and say I love myself, that’s going to affect your interactions with people who look like you.

I’ve always felt like I was observing everything, like I’m just looking out of the window, peeping how everybody is living and just penning about it, so I made the album about that concept.

I really just wanted to make something special for women. There aren’t enough records uplifting them out there.

I think it’s good that YouTube decided that they really want to showcase Black talent.

An outside party don’t ever stay outside.

If you tell somebody that you make music they’re all interested. But when you say you rap, they just start rolling their eyes at you. It would’ve taken me a lot longer to get my foot in the door if I’d continued rapping all the way.

I know when it comes to the actual narrative of my solo music, it’s its own thing. That’s why I went out of my way after ‘Crew’ to not do a bunch of collaborations.

I feel you gotta be nervous. If you’re nervous, it’s just ’cause you want to do well, it’s not ’cause you’re scared.

I’ll listen to certain things that I made back then, and I’m like, ‘I wish I could have done this, I would’ve done that’. When you start out making music, you just want to make something that people will like.

Being old didn’t seem like an accomplishment. Everyone I knew who was old was like sick or broke. It just didn’t look appealing until I moved to L.A. and started interacting with people who were 50+ and still kicking it, having money, living large.

I was reading Neil Postman’s ‘Amusing Ourselves to Death’. It’s one of my favourites.

Me and Goldlink have known of each other for a minute and our managers know each other so they set up a studio session. When we got in the studio, we was cool; we’re from the same area so we have a lot in common.

In order for people to take what you say seriously, they have to know who you are as a person.

Before anything, I wanted to be a rapper. I used to make beats and I would start singing to layer my beats and that’s kind of how I realized I could sing.

I feel like any way you can get the message to resonate, I’m all for it.

Emphasize strengths, don’t fix weaknesses.

Among the social networks, LinkedIn can be one of the most useful when it comes to cultivating critical, lucrative business opportunities, since it has a high concentration of business decision makers.

Focus on impact, not approval. If you believe you can change the world, which I hope you do, do what you believe is right and expect resistance and expect attackers. Keep calm and carry on!

The most powerful people on earth are focus groups.

When you focus on directing your energy away from harm and toward healing, you feed the soul and starve the ego.

Honestly, it’s hard to deal with the haters, but something that has helped me is not to focus on the haters and to focus on the nice people!

I have three kids, and that’s a big part of staying focused.

When a man knows he is to be hanged in a fortnight, it concentrates his mind wonderfully.