I'm very happy with this new record. It's dealing with different aspects of love-it's me making a statement about people doing something with their lives. It is about caring for others.
No one could understand the bond between me and my brother. I struggled to understand the forces that drove his soul in one direction and mine in another.
Blacks own so little of the music business, it's pathetic. But I see that changing soon. Black artists, black businessmen and women will unite.
I woke up one morning, went downstairs, said 'Good morning' to my mother and nearly scared both of us to death.'
I went to jail at 16 for stealing tires off Cadillacs. When I got out I said, Never again.
The whole system of society tells you what to do.
Leave me alone. I'm fine.
I quit high school on my birthday. It was my senior year and I didn't see the point. This was 1962, and I was ready to make music.
I didn't mind working in the clubs, but I resented it being a club where pimps hang out. Because the music that I create is of a higher intellect than that. It not only encompasses pimps, but whores, ballplayers, executives... everybody.
I kept my babies fed. I could have dumped them, but I didn't. I decided that whatever trip I was on, they were going with me. You're looking at a real daddy.
We forget that this music, music made by my brothers and sisters, is still a baby. It's just beginning. When I think of the possibilities, it makes me smile.
I woke up when I was 14 and went to speak to my mother and scared us both to death.
Elton John's opinion turned the label's opinion around, all in a day.
One preacher turned me on, another turned me off.
Everyone to me has to pick a subject to talk about in music if you're going to be a writer.
I've always loved War's Low Rider and Sly Stone's Thank You, and I just wanted to put my take on them.
If you were a young kid, 19, 20 years old who has two children and a third one on the way and refuses to leave them. A kid who was on welfare, because he refused to steal anybody's property or take anybody's money. You found life a lot tougher.
