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In the long, nonillustrious history of white people pilfering African American culture, have I just perpetrated that? I'm motivated by a love for the music and by a love of the performances, and I really hope I haven't done anything bad.

I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

Yes, the audience is so important to Negro music, especially the element of call and response.

Ninety-nine percent of the music that was of any interest to me when I was growing up came out of the black community.

I don't think I'm really so unique. If every black person looked at their life they would quickly discover that they have been influenced by every type of music prevalent in America.

I see myself as a hip-hop artist, but I never wanted to make music for a specifically white audience. That's not what I grew up around.

But I must own that I also felt stirred by an unselfish desire to voice all the joys and sorrows, the hopes and ambitions, of the American Negro, in classic musical form.

My audience went, 'Wait, why is she singing jazz? What's going on?' And then they went, 'Oh, because she can. Because she loves it.' And jazz, a music invented by the African-American community, is the greatest art form, I believe, to have ever come out of this country.

I wrote the Brotherhood song for no money out of my deep feelings about humanity, and because I was flattered that whatever talents I had, had been recognized.

I felt I had an opportunity to follow in the footsteps of great soul musicians of the past, who made a lot of social and political commentary through their music.