they're trying to wash us away, they're trying to wash us away.

I just sing what I feel in my heart. I ain't trying to prove nothing, and I don't think I ever did.

God is waiting for us, to forgive us all, and what is broken, he'll fix.

When I'm singing, it's a mixture of my innocence in the projects, my mom and dad. It's all the good and the bad, the laughs and the frowns that I went through and seen other people go through. Then you be trying to write it. Whatever's coming out, you try and make it all cool.

Through the years, I found we had Native American blood in us. My great-grandmother came from the island of Martinique, and they hooked up with the Native Americans of Louisiana.

When I was growing in the Callope project, we had an oval parkway. Pavement ran around this whole thing. We'd skate or ride bicycles. There were benches and trees out there. It was paradise to us. They finished building it the same year I was born.