I don't feel like I need to preach to the world or nothing like that. I just feel like I share what I say, and if listeners get it, they get it. And I never underestimate the audience's ability to feel me.
There are many benefits to this process of listening. The first is that good listeners are created as people feel listened to. Listening is a reciprocal process - we become more attentive to others if they have attended to us.
I like to get input from all different kinds of listeners, including the really conservative ones, and sometimes those listeners steer me in a direction that I haven't seen. But at the end of the day, my vote is always to go in the direction that makes me the most excited.
Listeners are kind of ambushed... if a poem just happens to be said when they're listening to the radio. The listener doesn't have time to deploy what I call their 'poetry deflector shields' that were installed in high school - there's little time to resist the poem.
A lot of the listeners don't realize that the Daytona 24 Hours is the most difficult race in the world. It's 24 hours, a lot of darkness because it's held at the end of January, so you're talking about 13-14 hours of darkness.
Barack Obama's administration responded to the Haitian crisis within 24 hours. Here comes the soldiers, here comes the food, go go go... Rush Limbaugh told his multi-millions of listeners that Obama only did that to gain favour with black people in America. This is the kind of idiocy that I have to deal with in my country.
Women have to be active listeners and interrupters - but when you interrupt, you have to know what you are talking about.
I will keep playing as long as my body lets me, and as long as I'm wanted by my listeners. Because music is the only thing that keeps me going.
I began in radio in 1997 on a radio show hosted by a now very famous comic, Jamel Debbouze. I would fake call listeners.
I treat everybody equal, and so I want to be sure that my listeners and my followers do the same if they're gonna represent me. And if I'm gonna represent them, then I also want to do it in a good way.