When you're in Jamaica, unless you're in a tourist spot, you don't hear Bob Marley; you mostly hear dance hall music.
Music was a central part of my childhood because my mother played organ and piano in the church, and that meant all us kids had to be in the church choir.
My house was filled with music. We had a piano, and my brothers and sisters played instruments. Even though I was around it, I played basketball.
We're five people, five individuals who came together to create something, to make music and to complete each other musically, to form a perfect circle.
Well, first of all, they're all about the music and all I care about in my professional career is the music.
There are singers that I have enjoyed, from Nina Simone and Ray Charles onward. But the music that made music the number one thing for me as a youth was jazz.
Music gave me a sense that I was worthwhile and that I had something of value to offer the world even though everybody was telling me that I didn't.
I'm a big hip-hop fan since being a kid. It was the first music that spoke to me and made me feel like, 'Yeah.'
At the beginning, at my shows, there were a lot of press and people from record companies. Now there are people who are there to just listen to the music and are genuine fans.
I want to put my vibe and my feel of music into an album and have people from different places around the world feel that and hear that.
I like what it is to sing, or to be with the others singing, to make music, but the fuss and all the things that are the exterior part of a career, has never interested me.
I guess now music is so saturated and so microwaved. It's, like, 15 minutes in the microwave and boom, you've got something. Nobody's putting passion or any thought behind it anymore.
There's always something to suggest that you'll never be who you wanted to be. Your choice is to take it or keep on moving.
I am happy that women can relate to my songs, and hopefully men can too.
Men are able to sustain a career into their 50s and 60s and still present themselves as sex symbols. With women, on the other hand, people say, 'Why doesn't she retire?'
I'm trying to encourage more women to be themselves, rather than what men want them to be. I don't believe in patronizing either sex.
In horror movies today it's lots of fast cut shot and lots of loud noises on the soundtrack. I tried to do the opposite. Playing with silence for instance.
I've done performances in movies that I was immensely proud of and the movies didn't take off like a rocket at Cape Canaveral, it didn't take off.
I've noticed that when people make vampire movies, they're always determining which of the rules they're going to stick to and which they'll abandon.
I like Hollywood movies. I like them like I like to eat scrambled eggs; I like them for fun.
I missed out on everything. Sometimes on the street I see teenagers hanging out and going to the movies, going to concerts, and I get so jealous.
