MIGUEL

I think that the best part of music is when it comes from a real place and has an ability to kind of connect on a much larger scale. It no longer is a personal thing, it becomes everyone else's thing as well.

Interestingly, I matured as a musician and as an artist before I matured as a man. What I mean by that is, I was ready to be completely vulnerable and honest with myself and unapologetic when it comes to how I express myself in my medium. But I wasn't as secure in doing that when it came to just being myself.

Some of us are only going to show our emotions while we're actually vulnerable. But that's what makes us human.

I think at any point, as an artist, whatever the medium - just having an audience means the world.

When I'm a part of someone else's creative process, it's all about facilitating their ideas and hopefully bringing their perspective and making it a part of a song.

I think your conversations are indicative of your tastes - even your diction.

The extremes of who I'd love to be onstage are David Bowie, Prince, and, I don't know, Bjork.

A lot of people forget that R&B put hip-hop on, R&B put rock on.

To its credit, hip-hop is my favorite genre, to this day, and it's hard not to be influenced by the culture and by the movement of it and by the soul of it.

I mean, there's plenty of artists who are making R&B music, but because of their ethnicity, it's considered something else.

Twitter is definitely not the place to handle business per se.

I feel that as artists - whatever your medium is - I feel that we're watching what goes on around us and we take what we don't see, or we don't hear, or we don't feel and we do something that speaks of it; more about it, for it, or against it - whatever our perspective is - that's what our job is.

You know, people aren't always the most open-minded.

I can write hundreds of songs on simple power chords.

I just think that Jack White is the consummate artist - an artist's artist. I'm a huge fan.

At the end of the day, as a grown man, I don't really care what the sexuality of the next man is.

I think it's natural for an artist to explore as they evolve.

I'm really excited to put music out that is a clear projection of my lifestyle.

It was important for me to remind people that there's no formula... there's no boundary to R&B music.

Historically, black music has influenced other cultures and other genres and created other genres.

I believe dreams represent the purest form of fantasy we unleash through our subconscious. They represent the truest freedom we can experience. Totally unrepressed and totally creative.

I have this propensity to just come out and say things. That's how I am in real life.

If you're interested in any artist, go see them live. I always say that you should go see an artist live. That's an experience that only you and the people in the room can say that they have.

I feel like R&B as a genre has become a caricature of itself.

Man, I grew up like everybody else. Middle-low income family. My parents got divorced like most of the rest of the country.