I'm an artist who happens to be gay.

Outside of Bounce, I listen to Beyonce, Sia, Rihanna.

I'd love to work with Snoop Dogg, Skrillex, Lil Wayne, Kendrick Lamar.

Bounce is a primarily call-and-response style of hip-hop over a 'Trigger Man' beat. It's a New Orleans-created hip-hop style that developed in the late '80s, early '90s.

When you hear me sit at the piano by myself and do one of those super-personal, confessional songs, that's where my true voice is.

I worked with Mrs. Davis for four years, and then she realized, as the material started getting harder, that I had never learned to read. I was just listening as she'd play the song, and I'd play it back. When that happened, she got very upset and stopped being my teacher.

The piano represents home to me. It represents a place where I can heal - the sound of it, the feel of it, the way it looks.

The thing is, I'm not really a great pianist at all. But if God said I could either sing or play piano, and which would it be? I would definitely choose the piano.

I really love Dinah Washington and anything live from her - she had some of the greatest jazz musicians in the whole world, and sometimes she would be with a big band, and sometimes she'd just be on stage with a muted trumpet, upright bass, and a piano.

I have no idea what was the first record I ever bought, but I think I asked my mom to buy me... um... a collection of Beethoven when I was a little girl because I became very addicted to his music. It might have been piano sonatas.

Once I finish something, if I don't feel that it's absolutely fabulous, there's no way I would ever let it be recorded, I wouldn't even present it to a producer.

At first, I was using my sister Susan's lyrics, as I could not write myself, only the music. And then one day, she and I had a fight, and she threatened to take away the lyrics from all the songs that I put the lyrics to, so it was that day that I began writing my first lyric to the music.

I wrote my first song when I was four, and I played it at my piano recital.

Etta James takes credit for writing some of the lyrics on 'I'd Rather Go Blind,' which I think are some of the most phenomenal lyrics I've ever heard. There's arguments now about who wrote it, but she always takes credit for it in her live performances.

I don't ever go and write music for an album. That's not something I do. I don't go and write music for an audience or a career; I don't do that at all. I write basically all the time. I'm addicted to it.

The only thing as a kid that really mattered to me was that I wouldn't quit. When I say 'quit,' I mean you wake up, you go to the piano, you go to whatever instrument, and you work at learning how to tell the truth.

One of the beautiful things about music is it gives you an opportunity to learn how to tell the truth, and it's a life-long learning process.

I'm a Bipolar 1, Rapid Cycler. So really easily, if I'm around people that are sick and are not medicated, and there's a lot of people going to AA that should be medicated that are really, truly mentally ill, then I end up being triggered.

Leonard Cohen is probably the greatest lyricist for music that's ever lived, you know?

When you love the music that you're going to play, of course you're going to do your best.

We all have our ups and our downs, and it's consistent throughout all of our lives. It's not a movie: you don't get to a point where, suddenly, you're free forever - it's life.

I don't think that Americans are ungrateful, not at all. But I do think that we are a young country, and we have a lot to learn.

If I ever had to choose between having a good mind and good health with having big success, then there's no contest: I'd put my health first every time.

For any performer who's coming up, if they really want to test their psychology and how they handle themselves on stage, then coming to the U.K. as a whole is a wonderful place for that.