But then there are magical, beautiful things in the world. There's incredible acts of kindness and bravery, and in the most unlikely places, and it gives you hope.
I hope that just what I sing about and how I relate to my audience is as much of a political statement as I need to make.
I hope that I can be an inspiration to kids that are young and may feel different or may feel like they don't belong.
Some men don't have the opportunity to be the type of father they need to be, and I hope my example teaches them to step up.
Entrepreneurs have a great ability to create change, be flexible, build companies and cultivate the kind of work environment in which they want to work.
I'm a polygamist. I can afford to have as many wives as I can afford to have. All Africans believe in it. My dad has four wives.
My dad has always been a big Ray Charles fan, and I've grown up listening to all kinds of music.
My dad's idea of punishment was to dress me up in all green to disguise me as grass, and then throw me in the pasture. Cows bit me all over.
Overcoming my dad telling me that I could never amount to anything is what has made me the megalomaniac that you see today.
You know, my mother's beautiful, my dad was a really handsome man, and there was a lot of talk about looks when I was growing up.
My dad has always been extremely supportive in every decision I've made and much more interested in me picking what I wanted to do.
As a five-year-old kid, I used to sit in front of the TV - I never missed 'Dukes of Hazzard,' not once. It was me and my dad's show.
I was born in 1968, just eighteen months after my sister Chrisse and just one year after Dad passed the bar exam.
I take my kids to school... I make them breakfast. Unfortunately, dad is a big spoiler, and most days, I make four different breakfasts.
Right about when I turned 13, I realized that women could be jockeys, from my travels to the racetrack with my dad.
I remember my dad, who coached football, would buy some of his players football shoes when they couldn't afford it.
I recruited my dad to be my bass player and fired him on several occasions. He stayed on as a bus driver.
My dad didn't want me to go for drama in school, so I chose the closest thing to it and got a bachelors degree in Communications at the Manhattan College.
My dad and grandpa were in the army and as a country singer you're constantly playing at military bases all across the country and meeting soldiers and their families and hearing their stories.
My dad's in banking, my mum manages the American branch of a Swiss vitamin company; they're really busy, but they still come to all my premieres.
When my dad needed a shirt ironed, he would yell downstairs to my mother, who would drop everything and iron his shirt.
