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Certainly tolerance and acceptance were at the forefront of my music.

I meet people every single day who have heard the music and incorporated it into their lives. I feel like I have a tribe all around the world.

When I was young, people were almost identified solely by the kind of music they liked. People fell into categories of who liked what.

When I was young I used to listen to other people and to try and understand what they thought and where they were coming from. I listened and didn't speak.

People always want to talk about who I was, but I've always been singing, always been experimenting with pop music.

I didn't want people to know that I was an artist. I was ashamed. I thought artists were weird, crazy people, you know. So I always kind of hid the fact that I was an artist.

I had tremendous fun fooling around with the way people talked about songs, just the way that became another way of understanding the world.

I was a different person before I started to write. When I realized I could be a songwriter and that people would listen - that was when I started feeling good in my life.

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.