I want people to see an honesty within me. I'm not trying to be the next Sam Cooke or Otis Redding.

I love the pioneers like Sam Cooke and Otis Redding, but when I write music, it comes out in my own way.

I'm coming from a Ginuwine and Usher background: slow and smooth songs. And that's why I really connected to Sam Cooke, because he was just very smooth. It's not like the James Brown types, which is all great stuff, but he was totally set apart from those guys.

I don't like a lot of attention. That's kind of who I am at heart. So I see everything, the people circulating around me and a lot of people know me - it kind of feels like a heavy weight sometimes.

I've done more harm by the falseness of trying to please than by the honesty of trying to hurt

I got tired of depending on other people, and I had this strong desire to make music of my own. I decided to start writing my own tunes and just see what could happen.