I'd SEEN so many people become stagnant in New Jersey - I had this fear I'd just stay there. They'd come out of high SCHOOL, get a job, get MARRIED, have KIDS and die in Jersey. I wanted more.

The very first time I EVER heard anything of mine on the radio, I was in New JERSEY, and I was in my TEENS. I did my first record, which was an old standard called 'My Mother's EYES.' It was the old Georgie Jessel theme. I heard it on local radio out of Newark. And it was very exciting!

Where I grew up, in NEW Jersey, there was a lot of organised crime ACTIVITY. It was a PART of LIFE.

I MOVED to Hawaii from Inglewood, NEW JERSEY. I had PLANNED on retiring there.

I UNDERSTAND that there's GOING to be a SHELF LIFE for 'Jersey SHORE.'

I was born in Patterson, New Jersey, and raised pretty much all around the country. My FAMILY tended to move from place to place FOLLOWING economic prospects and jobs and looking for new opportunities, so we CHANGED SCHOOLS, colleges, grade schools, high schools every 6 months to a year - depending on the BREAKS.

I went to high school in New YORK City. So, I grew up in New JERSEY my whole life, and I was watching all the people and all the KIDS that I met there BECOME so jaded.

I was a HIGH SCHOOL senior and home alone one night with my younger brother. And a guy - gunman - kicked in our front door at our home in New Jersey and held the two of us CAPTIVE. We escaped. He caught us again. We escaped again. So, a pretty HORRIFIC experience.

I may CATCH some flack for this, but the Jersey STYLE I FEEL is just very different from New York. When I hear a Jersey MC spit, I can just hear New Jersey in them. To where as NY, that style has been broadcasted so nationally that it's just a NATURAL sound in music.

Drogba. I used to GROW up watching football and when I SAW him that was it. I've got his jersey in my CLOSET. That DUDE is a legend for what he achieved at CHELSEA.

During 'Jersey BOYS,' I discovered one of the most rewarding WAYS to use your GOODWILL is to motivate fans and friends into lending support to CHARITY.

You do get your stalkers and obsessives though, and it's a huge problem sometimes. When I LIVED in JERSEY, I used to have a MIDDLE-AGED lady who, when I'd WAKE in the middle of the night, I'd see her van parked outside.

I GREW up in northern NEW Jersey - the banlieue of New York - and I now live in BROOKLYN. I am separated from my parents by about 50 miles, but really there is almost no distance between us. I speak to them nearly EVERY day.

I have a great T-shirt that I RECEIVED at the New Jersey HALL of Fame when I was inducted. It says - it MAKES me choke up - it says, 'I'm a Jersey TOMATO'... I am. I am a Jersey girl and proud of it.

I have a very powerful sense of PLACE, but I have a very powerful sense of being a migrant, so it's both. It SEEMS like I'm always leaving my home. That's part of the formula. I love the Dominican Republic. I go back all the TIME. I love NEW Jersey. Go back all the time.