Musician

All I want to do is get me a piece of land someplace where I can say, 'This is home,' and I got nobody bothering me.

I lived in the streets for three years when I was a kid, and every day, I didn't know where my next meal would come from.

I never knew about racial segregation until Martin Luther King.

I don't go on nobody's stage before I give praise to God.

I've fell flat on my face so many times, I'd rather be alone. I learned from the mistake, but I know I'm going to turn around and do it all over again.

When I went to Gabriel Roth's studio, I showed him I was good with my hands and started working as a handyman in his studio. I asked him for a chance, and he gave me a song to sing with Sharon Jones.

I did a CD way back in 1989, but I never got it off the ground.

If you want to give a show, make it real, and people will listen to you more carefully.

I'm so grateful there's people that believe in me and want to hear more about me.

I like to see the joy in people's' faces. I like to see when they actually question that I'm not afraid to answer and give them my respect and honesty with what I have to say to them.

It's not that I imitate him. I use a lot of what I feel. Even now, they refuse for me to stop doing James Brown. If it's something I can feel from the heart and from the soul, I do it.

I don't always know what I want to hear, but I'm gonna try and pull it out and sing it to you, and if you hear it the way I sing it to you, then a wall is broken.

I can't be angry at God. Look at all the love that he gave us. Look at the beautiful planet that he gave us.

I just have to open up when I'm on stage because that's what I did in my life. I want people to know what I've been through, and the love and the honesty that I have kept inside me. I just open my heart and let my heart go free.

I always loved James Brown, Diana Ross, Aretha Franklin, Sam Cooke.

Back in the day, I was afraid to speak out. When I get music behind me, it feels like I can soothe the hurt and put it in vocals and say it to the room the way I feel it.

If we don't change this world and look inside our differences inside of us, we gonna bring this world back to a hard point.

I was learning 'Changes' at the time that my mom was sick and she was leaving me. And those last verses in that song, they really struck my soul, totally.

When I got out of Job Corps, I was an empty shell. I didn't know what to do with myself.

When people are screaming when I'm on stage, I can't even find the words to thank them and tell them how much I love them, but I'll never forget all these faces.