I think it's that thing of growing up all the time watching American movies and listening to American music. It hits you in a way that's a lot purer because you are not in that culture that you're watching.

I think that American music, for me, it's a synthesis of a lot of different things. But for me growing up in North Carolina, the stuff that I was listening to, the things that I was hearing, it was all about black music, about soul music.

For me, personally, I grew up watching American heroes and American movies and TV.

I think America concedes that true American music has sprung from the Negro.

I don't think there is much American music.

American music culture is black culture.