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Mostly singing was cathartic, writing was cathartic, therapeutic. I don't think I had a goal, particularly, to sing or put it out there for anybody.

I grew up with music in the house. I was told I could sing as soon as I started talking. Everybody in my family sang, always lots of records, blues and jazz and soul, R&B, you know, like Mahalia Jackson, Aretha Franklin, Coltrane, that kind of thing.

In the olden days, everybody sang. You were expected to sing as well as talk. It was a mark of the cultured man to sing.

I first started to sing when I started to talk. As soon as I could form words and sounds together, I was singing.

As soon as I could speak, I was singing. Before I could even speak full words, I would make up ones to sing and I have it on tape, too.

In my early shows, I wanted to put myself through a new childhood, disintegrating my whole identity to let the real one emerge. I became a human jukebox, learning all these songs I'd always known, discovering the basics of what I do. The cathartic part was in the essential act of singing.

Because everybody always encouraged me to sing, I assumed that I wasn't bad at it. It felt like it was obvious what I was going to pursue. I thought I was good for as long as I can remember.

I feel like I was always singing. Since I could speak, I could sing. It came very naturally. In school, I was always singing in choruses and choirs. I always loved to sing; it was something to fun to do.

I discovered at the age of five that I could sing, and I realised people liked it. The sound that came out made people happy, so I kept doing it.

My dad says I could sing before I could talk, if that's possible. I was always humming and things like that.