The Afro-American experience is the only real culture that America has. Basically, every American tries to walk, talk, dress and behave like African Americans.

I've got to where I am in life not because of something I brought to the world but through something I found - the wealth of African culture.

My biggest obsession is to show Africans and the world who the people of Africa really are.

I am a forward-looking person and live in the moment to build for the future.

I think it is incumbent on all human beings to oppose injustice in every form.

I lived for music since I could think.

It's obvious that the rest of the world loves high African culture - African culture, period.

I don't think any musician ever thinks about making a statement. I think everybody goes into music loving it.

When people campaign for positions, they promise people all kinds of things.

All my experiences removed geography from my world.

I grew up with protests, marches, demonstrations, struggle. But I come from a clan of community workers.

Our focus should be on making the most of our own lives, regardless of whether we start at the bottom or the top- not on envying the advantages and achievements of others.

I saw for the first time that I could stop giving people the power to make me feel disrespected. In my anger I began to see the absurdity of allowing this boy to shame me.

One thing I have learned in my time in politics is that if one of the parties is shameless, the other party cannot afford to be spineless.

Everybody has goals, aspirations or whatever, and everybody has been at a point in their life where nobody believed in them.

I love so many different genres. I love crime films - and unusual coming-of-age pieces.

I wonder if I could make an electric bass.

Criticism is just someone's opinion you don't agree with!

Old habits cannot be thrown out the upstairs window. They have to be coaxed downstairs one step at a time.

I don't in any sense think of myself as a celebrity, which of course I'm not.

Working in Tokyo has convinced me that, contrary to what people think, it is actually one of the world's most beautiful cities.