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I get interested in the various ways that music is being done in the culture, and some of it I like thoroughly enough to want to learn about it. The way I have been successful at doing that is to become part of it.

In every interview I've got to explain something about being white but still being into hip hop. It's gone way beyond the musical aspect of the business. And I'm as critical about music as everybody else is.

All your experiences, the places you go to, the encounters you have with people, and, of course, your cultural trappings all make you who you are, and who you are makes your music.

I don't look at our society today too much. My focus is still in the past, and part of the reason is because what I do - the wellspring of art, or what I do - l get from the blues. So I listen to the music of a particular period that I'm working on, and I think inside the music is clues to what is happening with the people.

I see how people look at me, all around the world. They see something because of the race I belong to. I have to understand that and put it into my music.

I try to find the core values that are so fundamental that they transcend ethnic identity. That doesn't mean I run from it. I embrace African-American culture and I love it and embrace it, but it is a part of a human identity. So I'm always trying to make a larger human statement.

I feel like a part of my role being a musician and part of why I want to be a musician is to show women an alternative to sort of the cultural norms, the stereotypes of what we're supposed to be, demure and quiet and motherly.

I think that what appeals to me in my work is having the opportunity to inhabit different genres and so to reach different audiences.