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 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.
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.
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 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 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 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.
I grew up with the Blind Boys' music. My family owns a music store in Claremont, California, called The Claremont Folk Music Center. I grew up with a heavy diet of gospel, folk, and blues because those are kind of the cornerstones of traditional American music.
Even though I grew up playing folk music - and surf music, originally - I was listening to Motown and Stax on the radio as well. That music always resonated with me.
I grew up listening to a lot of soul music, which has probably informed the way that I sing on my tracks.
My dad is a huge folk music fan, so growing up, there were always records playing in my house. Carole King, James Taylor, Simon and Garfunkel, the Beatles - I grew up with this music, and I was aware of how special this music was to a lot of people.
I grew up listening to a lot of Simon & Garfunkel and Peter, Paul and Mary. I know that sounds dorky, but I always responded strongly to that kind of lyric-driven folk music.
The only music I was listening to for ages was old soul. So I wasn't listening to a lot of new music - especially indie music.
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.
Most of the music I grew up listening to was not Christian music, although I definitely had a lot of that at home, too.
My mom spent like a decade of her life living in Paris, and I grew up listening to a lot of French music as well as Arabic music.