I couldn't believe I was working with Michael Jackson. I thought, growing up as a kid, I thought Michael was a cartoon.

I've always had mostly women come out to see me perform. That's the reason the guys show up; they know R. Kelly is going to draw the women. Most of the songs I'm singing are catering to women anyway.

I started learning everybody's riffs, from Donny Hathaway to Jeffrey Osborne to James Ingram. That helped me create my own style of singing.

I started calling myself the Pied Piper, when I started using the flute sound in my music.

As an actress, I am happy that people are offering me good roles and I am earning success critically and commercially.

I believe there should be no arbitrary date set for withdrawal and yet no permanent, unending deployment. No cut and run, yet measured progress in helping a people who want to be free without an illusion of overnight success.

As much as it might look like, to someone else, that I'm successful, I never feel like I'm anywhere. The further I go, I still feel equally further from my eventual goal. Because as I grow, I get more goals. I'm never content.

My father had a difficult relationship with success, maybe because he never obtained it. But he was very wise about it because he observed how you can become rotten fruit once you get power.