I try to be visible and I try to make sure I do an excellent job so that people will remember me and want to use my services again.

Working with Arthur Prysock, the jazz singer. We routed all through the U.S. for a couple of years on the "chitlin circuit", playing these small little jazz clubs. We toured in a converted bread truck. Occasionally, we'd get a real cool gig like Atlantic City or someplace in Vegas.

The challenges are living a life where you're waiting for the phone to ring. You don't know what your next thing is going to be, or who you're going to be working with, or what you're doing. That can be stressful if you don't vary your client base. You want to be highly diversified to that you'll get lots of calls. But the diversity and variedness of the projects you get to work on is excellent and very energizing and inspiring.

I consider myself an excellent utility-type of player because I try to do excellent work in any setting, whether it's playing straight up hip-hop with The Roots and doing a rock'n'roll thing with Blues Traveler, or working with Afro-pop singer Angelique. I have to be able to wear a lot of hats, to know enough about percussion and different techniques and styles.

Sometimes you don't get a chance to. I consider myself constantly a student of percussion and I'm always doing homework. It's a never-ending process for me. I study other styles and listen to other forms of music from around the world. Now that the world has gotten a lot smaller because of the Internet, there's no reason why I shouldn't be able to hold a conversion, percussion-wise, in other styles of music.

Personally, I try to be visible and I try to make sure I do an excellent job so that people will remember me and want to use my services again. I've been blessed to be able to do lots of shows, TV or whatever, where a lot of people see me. The 10 years with Whitney was a highly visible job. I also do a lot of self-promotion to put me out there as a performer and as a player. I send out press releases and I keep my endorsers abreast of what I'm doing.

I consider myself a percussion artist - not just a sideman - who is an individual artist on his instrument. I get called to do lots of sideman-type jobs, which I don't have a problem with because that is my bread and butter. But I'm recording my first record right now, Afrotek, and doing it independently. I'm also working on my second percussion-sample CD, Ethno Techno.

My professional philosophy is to be excellent at every outing, whatever you're working on.