I just put people on my records that I think bring something really unique to the song, and that's what's going to make it live over time. Not the fact that an artist might be 'hot' at the time.

I'm not big on collaborations with 'superstars.' It generally doesn't work for me.

I go to bed late, and I wake up early; in this game, to win it, you have to do that. The military prepared me to do that: you go to bed late and wake up early.

You might be like, 'I want really big hits.' But when you get really big hits, and your label is making $150 million, they are people who are now interested in what you do. They are going to begin to tell you what to do, and so you become important. So your creative freedom - you're not going to have that again.

I have to be me, which is, don't like a lot of crowds, don't like a lot of attention - kind of being by myself.

Even my mom is calling me Shaggy now, which is weird, because Shaggy is more like a character that I play. Shaggy is flamboyant; he's cocky. And I can't live that twenty-four hours a day - hell, no.

I cleaned many a toilet.

I would never be about waking up early and do morning radio and TV back to back had I not been in the military, where they are throwing a garbage can in the middle of my squad bed at 5 o'clock in the morning for four years straight.

The biggest thing I take away from the Army is that work ethic and being able to focus and put your eyes on a goal.

I just think, as a people in general, we should always look at ourselves as the underdog, so we should always go harder than the next person.