“There’re lots of musicians in my family, too. My mother sings incredibly well. I’ve got to make a record with my mother’s voice on it. She sings a lyric soprano. We do the opposite. I’m a baritone. She’s a star singer in her church. She always does her solo.”

I’ve lived long enough to feel the sway of corporations both legal and illegal. Corporations give you drugs and they prescribe and prescribe them and they can be worse for you. Whereas you have illegal drugs and that is all about moderation. You have to know your body.

When I was modelling, I spent half my life staring at thousands of perfect reflections. It got to a stage where I was losing all sense of reality – so after I quit modelling, I took all the mirrors out of my house.

Prescription drugs can be even worse than illegal drugs. The only difference is the legality.

This is depression, it comes when your blocking. This is expression it comes when you’re rocking

Music has its own depths, and I let it take me where it takes me, even if it means stripping all my clothes off.

I can look at a fur and tell if it’s good or not.

Rock n’ roll can get quite overwhelming. You can get caught up in the cycle.

Some songs come from my head, some from my throat, but there will always be moments when it is an injection of the soul.

I love women, but I’ve never had a relationship with a woman.

I believe in individuality, that everybody is special, and it’s up to them to find that quality and let it live.

My mother was a champion high-jumper. My three brothers are basketball players. We’ve all been very athletic.

I don’t collaborate. You’re born alone, you die alone, you get on stage alone.

Whatever; bling always has something to hide.

If people think I’m angry, I don’t want to burst anybody’s bubble. I like sometimes for people to be afraid of me. But it’s not really anger; it’s discipline.

I like working until the morning, so I can see the day and then I like to go to sleep and then get up before sunset. But I love the energy of the morning.

My father would have been made a bishop much earlier than he was had it not been for me and my image.

She was mother not only to me but to the whole nation. She served the Indian people to the last drop of her blood.

In 1985, I was arrested, along with my mother and brother, Martin III, in a protest against apartheid at the South African Embassy in Washington, D.C.

It is painful beyond measure to lose a loving father and grandmother to violence.

When my father died, the money he left us would have dried up within a year were it not for my mother. We might very well have ended up on welfare.

Before my mother was a King, she was a gifted vocalist and musician, whose skill and academia garnered her a scholarship to the prestigious New England Conservatory for Music in Boston.

In 1985, I joined my mother in a protest against apartheid in which we were arrested at the South African embassy in Washington, D.C. And she was at President-elect Mandela’s side in Johannesburg when he claimed victory in South Africa’s first free elections.

Poverty is a divine stepmother who does for youths what their own mothers were unable to do. It introduces them to frugality, to the world and to life.

Before she was a King, my mother was a peace advocate, a courageous leader, and an accomplished artist.