I'm singing the way that I love to sing, which is like old soul, like old Al Green. I grew up about an hour from Memphis. So all that music that I grew up with - the Stax music and early rhythm n' blues - I'm doing that. I'm actually getting out from behind my guitar and I'm singing.
I grew up listening to a lot of soul music, and a lot of folk music.
I grew up listening to a lot of Malaysian pop music, which is kind of like a mixture of traditional and pop... I was also listening to a lot of English music as well.
I grew up listening to AM radio in the '70s and hearing all of that great soul and rhythm and blues music, which definitely influenced the way I sing. But singing gospel has made me a much more humble person. There are so many people who were geniuses who only a few people knew about when they were alive.
I grew up listening to a lot of player-piano music in my house and a lot of old Tin Pan Alley songs and American standards. My dad listened to a lot of traditional Irish music and I grew up doing musical theater. So most of the music I was exposed to as a kid was pre-rock n' roll.
My mum and dad used to listen to a lot of R&B and soul, so this was the way I grew up. Hip-hop, of course. But then as I grew older, I started listening to everything.
I grew up listening to a lot of Usher at 13 and 14. I have every Usher album that ever existed. So I grew up listening to a lot of Usher, Michael Jackson, Luis Miguel, a lot of pioneers in Latin music.
Growing up in a house where there was a lot of different musical influences - my mom listens to soul stuff and Top 40, my sisters would listen to hip-hop - and the church, I grew up listening to a lot of gospel stuff. So I think that plays a role in how I make music now because my music has a lot of range. I don't just do one thing.
I would say I grew up listening a lot to Barbra Streisand and Judy Garland and Joan Baez and Joni Mitchell. I grew up listening to those because my parents were kind of into folk music.
I grew up listening to a lot of hiphop music and R'n'B. Bands like A Tribe Called Quest, De La Soul, Big Daddy Kane, Boogie Down Productions, Cypress Hill, New Edition, Bob Marley, Prince, Stevie Wonder, and a lot of Spanish music.
I grew up listening to a lot of emo music, a lot of rock music, a lot of rap music, a lot of trap music, funk, everything.
I grew up listening to pop; I grew up listening to '60s pop music, the Beatles, the Monkees, Herman's Hermits and all that stuff. So I had a very strong background of listening to great pop music.
We grew up listening to music like that: we grew up on the snap music, grew up off the trap music, grew up on all the South sound.
I don't know exactly what genre to put it in, I just know that I grew up listening to a lot of soul music - Stevie Wonder, Michael Jackson, Prince, and Whitney Houston. I was inspired by all these great big voices, and I try to do music that's timeless.
We're Midwestern guys who grew up listening to soul music.
I'm not going to do anything crazy, but I want to do music that I'm passionate about. I'm finally at an age where I can do the music that I grew up loving, which was urban pop, '90s music. I grew up listening to the divas, so I'm very happy to finally do urban pop. I hope that it's received well, and it has been so far.