I've gone the full spectrum - from gospel to blues to jazz to soul to pop - and the public has accepted what I've done through it all. I think it means I've been doing something right at the right time.
I might have lived long enough to learn all this in the long haul, but I would have been just another soul taking up time and space for a long spell before I learned.
Music is the greatest communication in the world. Even if people don't understand the language that you're singing in, they still know good music when they hear it.