Well, I was always a bit of a political junkie. Even as a kid I would read biographies of presidents and of civil rights leaders like Martin Luther King and Frederick Douglass and Booker T. Washington.

Jackson and Bernie Mac. i. On September 21 2008 he also performed at the Royal Albert Hall in London UK in conjunction with the Peace One Day concert.

He has won nine Grammy Awards and in 2007 he received the special Starlight Award from the Songwriters Hall of Fame. He lent his voice to Magnetic Man's "Getting Nowhere" Kanye West's "All of the Lights" on Slum Village's "Selfish" and Dilated Peoples' "This Way".