“There’s the hype stuff that people love for five minutes and then there’s the stuff that changes cultures and shifts how you look at music. And then there’s that rare point where that hype stuff changes the game.”

If it feels good coming out, then I really don’t care about anything else, for real. It’s all about just having fun with it. If it feels like less work, then the project is coming out better.

If I feel like making something, if I feel like saying something on the track, that’s what I am going to do – regardless of reaction.

I used to think that there was a certain way I had to stick to when it came to R&B, but now I’m saying whatever, the same way these rappers do. I’m bringing that into R&B music.

I don’t really feel the loyalty to any particular genre. To be completely honest, I’m an R&B singer because I’m black and I sing.

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 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.’

Yes, I tried to change the classical style in a way that people who don’t understand it can enjoy.

I appreciate the change associated with people’s growth, but I don’t like the changes in our lives. I came to Mumbai in 1945, so imagine my acceptance of the massive changes around. I have witnessed every kind of revolution.

In my opinion, the biggest achievement was by Shankar-Jaikishan. With Raj Kapoor’s ‘Barsaat,’ they changed the way we looked at playback singing.

The only time a woman really succeeds in changing a man is when he is a baby.

Change is vital to any actor. If you keep playing lead after lead, you’re really gonna dry up. Because all those vehicles wean you away from the truths of human behaviour.

It doesn’t matter how strong your opinions are. If you don’t use your power for positive change, you are, indeed, part of the problem.

Progress is a nice word. But change is its motivator. And change has its enemies.

If that vital spark that we find in a grain of wheat can pass unchanged through countless deaths and resurrections, will the spirit of man be unable to pass from this body to another?