My first job was with The O'Jays playing drums.

I think if you look back at the lead singers that left groups that didn't make it, you'll see that a lot of them were songwriters like Lionel Richie. I mean, they were able to control their own destiny.

A protest is supposed to be public. How can you do it if you don't do it in front of an audience?

With pop, it's pretty much straight up and down. It has to be simple. Everybody has to be able to walk down the street and be able to sing it.

I can be the most skilled person in the world, but if everyone else at my firm lacks skills, my employer is going to find it more difficult to introduce new technology, new production techniques. So as a result, my employer is going to be less productive. They will not be able to afford to pay me as good wages.

As long as a government can come and shoot you, you can't jump on the Internet to freedom.

I'm not going to blurt out my whole life on the Internet and just be all crazy emotional. I'm not that type of person, but it's in my music.

The Internet is too transformative for incumbents to not want to try to stifle or curb it - incumbents in the sense of multinational corporations, governments, take your pick.