I sang everything - R&B slow jams, Spanish slow jams, romantic reggaeton - and I really didn't care which I got signed for.
I always loved slow jams and wanted to make them, but didn't know how I could because I couldn't sing. Then Barry White made 'Love Serenade' in which all he did was talk the entire jam. I said, 'I can do that.'
The words are the important thing. Don't worry about tunes. Take a tune, sing high when they sing low, sing fast when they sing slow, and you've got a new tune.
Coming from an R&B background, I was like, 'I'm gonna make slow jams.'
America...Do not touch my TV, my DVD, my stereo, my dual-deck VCR. Do not touch my old school, my new school, my slow jams, my party jams, my happy rap, and you better not touch...My James Brown.
I love my slow jams.
See, I'm a Pisces, so I get down with love songs. I'm totally into slow jams and old-school R&B, all that.
I always did sing. It's always been something I love to do but it has also been the most private and most secret thing that you don't really want to let the world in on.
I'm a hip-hop kind of guy, but to be honest with you, I could listen to R&B all day. Give me some slow jams, and I'm a happy person.
The thing is: I was quite slow when I was younger. I might have been smart - I don't know - but I was slow talking to people. And as you can see, I don't talk very loud.
Now one thing I think is really lame, is if you're an artist and you go to a karaoke bar and sing your own song. I like to get up there and sing stuff that I would never sing on stage anywhere else. Like Neil Diamond.
Singing background has always been such a precious thing. I'm always going to be excited to sing behind an artist and learn from them.
I've discovered people in my lifetime who are like, 'I always wanted to sing but... ' It's like, 'Well then, did you try?' My thing was always not caring about failure.
I'm really good at the '90s slow jams. I've got that down. But I love to dance, so why wouldn't I make something I could dance to?
I've always chosen all my own material; no one ever told me what to sing or how to sing it, but I've always been pressured intensely to use musicians outside of my band.
Sister Simplicitie!
Sing, sing a song to me,--
Sing me to sleep!
Some legend low and long,
Slow as the summer song
Of the dull Deep.