I think a certain amount of anger has been a fuel of mine, if you want - but also some sort of sadness, and plain mischief, of course.
I think the women - Lauryn Hill, Mary J. Blige, Erykah Badu - are doing new conceptual things and using their voices to create new American music.
When I first started, my songs were the politics of anger. As I got older and hopefully wiser, I wanted to be part of the politics of answers.
I love inspirational R&B, like Mary J. Blige and Jennifer Hudson. I want to do that. That kind of music stays with you.
I would say my greatest musical influences have been Ella Fitzgerald and Mary J. Blige.
I'm not angry, I'm not an angry person, but I do sometimes like playing with the perception of anger, as in pretending that I'm more angry than I actually am, and sometimes it works quite well.
I'm not 17 anymore. I still have some of the same sort of anger, but I have a sense of humor about it... a sense of being constructive with that anger.
I have been to anger management twice. After the first session the lady was like, 'Baby, you don't seem that angry at all. You seem like a really nice guy.'
A wonderful emotion to get things moving when one is stuck is anger. It was anger more than anything else that had set me off, roused me into productivity and creativity.
I was born in Toronto and studied with the National Ballet of Canada. I went to school to study dance, slept on the floor, ate nothing, waitressed - and then there was a Mary J. Blige audition.
I became a vegetarian out of compassion for animals and to live as healthy as possible. I realized soon after that I was truly concerned with nonviolent consumption and my own health, a vegan diet was the best decision.
I can't do some of the songs that younger girls like Mary J. Blige and Beyonce are doing. They have their own place and I have my own place.
I had a job at a movie theater for like a year and a half and then a job at a health food store for, like, two years. Those were the only two jobs I ever had.
It's a music video but she was real specific on the character that Mary J. Blige was playing, and that I was playing in this video and I told her whenever you get to jump to the big screen I'd love to come with you and she honored that.
I have a song called 'Decisions' that features Jamie Foxx, Mary J. Blige, John Legend and Common. It's about people who have made a decision to really stand by you as friends.
One of the album's songs features Mary J. Blige, but I don't want to talk too much about it yet. I think you will hear the music that's been playing in my head when it comes out.
I like girls that have a nice smile and nice eyes. I want to date a girl who understands my busy schedule and that I have to be on tour a lot. And she has to make me laugh!
I don't think it's good to run on anger, but it's really great when that's the first couple of gallons in your tank - when you've had enough, and you're just pissed off enough to go for it. In a lot of ways, that sort of environment can be a catapult...
It's usually a big kind of vent of frustration or anger or sadness that puts me in the right frame of mind to write. It's such a cliche to say that artists write when they're down, but it's true for me. It's a relief to get out what's eating away at ...
If I could ever be on a Missy Elliott record, I could then die. Missy Elliott, Mary J. Blige - I love hearing them interviewed, I love the way they talk about their art. They're very self-assured, they're funny, they're inviting. I love it.
On the radio there's only a certain amount of artists: Jay-Z, Beyonce, Kanye, T-Pain, Lil Wayne, T.I., Mary J Blige, Alicia Keys. Other artists are achieving things that are really special, they have a hard time getting people's attention. Music has ...
