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I come from an African Caribbean background. I've been influenced by a reggae church music style, contemporary gospel, and rock all fused together.

My mother's sister married a man from Barbados, and my cousins were raised in Barbados. So we traveled down there, they came up every summer for camp, and I started paying attention to their music. And that was the first place I ever remember hearing reggae and liking it.

Reggae is my heart since I was a kid. I love Reggae music.

If reggae comes from another country, you can have the relationship to reggae that I have to rock. But it's something I grew up with. It's probably something I appreciate more now. In the '80s, I was all about New Wave and synth pop - New Order and Depeche Mode and Eurythmics and Michael Jackson and tons and tons and tons of Prince.

I grew up in a house full of music. Everything from reggae and afro-beat to Zook and pop.

I came from a very strict background, and didn't hear any Jamaican music when I was growing up.

Reggae was always a passion of mine. I used to say in interviews that I would love to do a reggae album. But it consumed my life being a hip-hop artist and being Heavy D, which I'm happy and proud of.

I got hooked into folk music by accident, because that's what white college kids liked when I was a child.

I do have very solid reggae roots based on the fact that I'm Jamaican, and so that is a part of myself; even if I never do all reggae, it has to come out in some way because that's who I am.