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There's a lot of craft that goes into achieving a hit song - at the beginning of your career, you're usually more inspiration than craft, and you get great when those intersect. A skilled songwriter can get you to that intersection.

You don't necessarily pick the singles that you want when you're making a record, but for the most part it's the same process. You're the artist - you make the music that you want to make.

In a sense, a hit belongs to the person who made it popular, but if a tune is good enough to attain tremendous success, then it certainly deserves more than one version, one treatment, one approach.

I'm a great believer in not over-thinking lyrics. You might become technically better as a songwriter, but you lose what originally made your songs great.

Hit songs are mysterious and slippery beasts; few artists have a lock on them. This means that many people, like me, have become fans of songs rather than fans of artists.

No matter how much money I make, no matter how many hit songs. I still perform like a street performer.

I just consider myself an artist. I don't really rap. I don't really sing. I just do what I feel is good, and people like it.

I think if you are writing an instrumental you are dealing with more of an aesthetic in a sense but a lyric is more of a putting yourself on the line and a much more expensive exercise.

Just knowing how to rap doesn't necessarily mean that you're a good songwriter.