A couple of months ago I hauled my white ass on stage alongside Chaka Khan and Stevie Wonder for Divas Las Vegas, singing in front of a celebrity audience. If I can hold my own there, I can hold my own at Top of the Pops, trust me.
I used to be a pop singer; well, not used to be. I am an R&B singer. My emphasis was on Stevie Wonder and Chaka Khan and Aretha Franklin.
I probably wouldn't be singing if not for Michael Jackson. When I started singing, I didn't like my tone until my mom put me on to Michael Jackson and Stevie Wonder, so listening to the way they used their instrument helped me get more comfortable with my own.
Don't hold against me that I don't own - that I don't own a single stock or bond. Don't hold it - I have no savings accounts.
I loved things like Destiny's Child, and Amy Winehouse's first record came out when I was 11 years old. But as a young, young child, I was just surrounded by Stevie Wonder, Whitney Houston, Chaka Khan - just massive, soulful voices.
You know later in life I was inspired to sing and that would've been Aretha, Chaka Khan, Mariah - the typical divas were the inspiration. I've always enjoyed all those singers.
Any artist who goes to Las Vegas is an idiot as far as I am concerned. Whoever goes to Las Vegas can stay in Las Vegas.
I never envisioned that I would be able to bring something to the entertainment table that would fit Las Vegas. Vegas is so presentational; it's live theater and, for me, it's always been film or television, which isn't why people come to Las Vegas. So it's exciting to be apart of all of this, the thrust of the entertainment of Vegas.
The stage floor was a stage of thin ice for me to tread. To hold my own or to sink through and die, never to be remembered.
I go to Las Vegas--or at least I went to Las Vegas--because even though I knew everything that was sinister, calculating, and evil about it, I loved Las Vegas. Only in Vegas could I dare to fantasize that I was a Friend of Frank. Or that I was throwing the dice at Dino's favorite table. Or that I might luck out and sip bourbon with Rickles after his last lounge show. The D.I. oozed that kind of heady fantasy.
In all my years in show business - on stage, clubs and TV shows - my audience has been 75 percent white. In Las Vegas and Atlantic City I look out at the crowd and only see a few black faces here and there. But I can't allow myself to be conscious of the race factor. I couldn't perform my best under those conditions.
I love Las Vegas. I like that Las Vegas has everything. Everything and anything you want to do, you can do in Las Vegas. You can pretty much do it all day and all night if you want to.
I heard Smokey Robinson was singing one of my songs on the radio the other day. Being in the presence of Mavis Staples, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott - Stevie Wonder joined me on stage recently. That blows me away.
Malcolm Turnbull got a majority in the parliament that he is trying to ignore and lock his own members of parliament into positions that they don't hold, and sometimes into positions that we know he doesn't hold. It's no wonder the public's started turning on him.
I love Las Vegas. I like that Las Vegas has everything. Everything and anything you want to do, you can do in Las Vegas.
Obviously, I try to make the films work for an audience. That's the main point of making a film, and in retrospect, one can see that certain films, let's say Leaving Las Vegas, demonstrated its own success.
I don't need anyone to hold me, I can hold my own.