I approach things from my feeling first. I have to get a feel for the character. I'll do that through music; I'll do it through what is naturally popping up for me when I read the script. My ideas or whatever the occupation of the character might be.
When I was in seventh grade, I totally had a crush on a guy who was older than me, and he listened to alternative music. So he was into Days of the New and stuff like that, and more poppy stuff, too, like Matchbox Twenty.
I don't want the 35-year-olds in my audience to think of me as as 'pops' giving the kind of advice that only 65-year-olds can understand.
These things were happening in my life where I was like, 'Man, I wish my pops was here to see this.' I never had those thoughts before fame, when my life was just a regular life. I wasn't saying, 'I wish my dad could be around and see me working at Applebee's.'
People desire power. I don't know why they want it so. It seems to me it implies a hugely superior intellect which separates them from most of the populace.
I'll put it like this: When I was in high school, I would never win a popularity contest back then... it was always somebody else that got picked first for whatever reason. But all those people that went before me usually dropped the ball... then I'd get my shot.
I don't care whether people like me or dislike me. I'm not on earth to win a popularity contest. I'm here to be the best human being I possibly can be.
Anytime something starts to feel like a popularity contest or not about the music, I'd rather just not be involved. I'm not a big high-fiver. That really gets to people around me when we have a No. 1 or something big happen. I'm not a big, 'Let's go have a party about it!'
You don't have to like me as a person - I understand that I can get on people's nerves with the antics I do in the ring. This is not a popularity contest. I'm trying to do whatever I can to win the fight.
It's innate in me to be a Democrat - a true Southern populist kind of Democrat. There's not a lot of those anymore. I'm not saying I'm right or wrong. That's just the way I feel.
One of the very few things that I actually read about myself on blogs that got to me was people saying, 'Ne-Yo doesn't do R&B music anymore.' Just because I stepped off the porch to explore doesn't mean I don't live in that house anymore.
Ultimately, my goal is to inspire little brown girls that look like me, that are sitting on the porch wearing cornrows.
My very first car was a grey Alfa Romeo Alfasud, which I got in 1987. But, in our family, all cars were for sale - so they might be there in the morning and were gone at night. In the mid-90s, I joined Porsche and the Carrera was the car, and the Carrera 4S was the one they gave me. As a wee boy from Dumfries, I couldn't believe it.
I remember one day, when things were going frightfully well, I went to buy myself a really smashing car. I asked them to show me a Porsche with an automatic gearbox, and the salesman called over all the other salesmen, and they stood around absolutely roaring with laughter.
The Porsche was just a vehicle to get to another place. I used it to change people's perceptions of me. I had grown up really middle class. USC was filled with elitists, richies who would go skiing every weekend. So I pretended like I was part of that world - to be accepted.
What I did in '06 with 'Port of Miami' was classic for that era, for that time frame, and in 2017, 'Rather You Than Me' will be the same.
I pecked my stories out two-fingered on the Remington portable typewriter my mother had bought me. I had begged for it when I was ten.
I love shopping! I look for new shopping portals. I keep buying a lot of stuff online. I don't follow any one person per se, but if I feel that the particular wear will look good on me, I pick it up without thinking.
I spent 12 years of my life writing stories without black people. That's insane to me. It's insane that I could have believed in magical portals and dragons and all that stuff, but to believe a black person could be experiencing those things was unimaginable.
It's not just Porter Ranch. There's communities like Chatsworth. There's communities like Northridge. There's communities like Granada Hills - and a lot of them are writing to me.
