'Magic' is a word that's too often misused in the record industry.

The good news is in the record business, they only count your successes.

A chart that weighs some ad-supported streams the same as a pay stream... encourages artists to promote free tiers to have a No. 1 record. That's great for the tech companies, but not for artists.

If you're an artist, and you put out a record - most artists only have one or two hit records - that has 100 million streams, on certain services you only get paid on 75% of those streams. How's an artist going to live like that?

If you're great, that means you're freaked out that the next day you're not going to be great. You keep trying.

I didn't have any sophistication. I didn't really have any great taste or anything like that. I was just a kid from Brooklyn. But what I learnt is the why, the how. The work ethic.