It has the passion, it has the respect, it has all of the things that you really want an anthem to have and it carries the melody.

It's just not a big thing. It's like the secretary said, the anthem has been done in country, in hip hop. We wanted to give people a way of demonstrating their desire to want to be Americans.

It's the one thing everybody has in common, the aspiration to have a relationship with the United States . . . and also to express gratitude and patriotism to the United States for providing the opportunity.

There's no attempt to usurp anything. The intent is to communicate. I wanted to show my thanks to these people who buy my records and listen to the music we release and do the jobs I don't want to do.

We know that not everyone agrees, and we want to do our best to respect their views, too.

I have no respect for the passion of equality, which seems to me merely idealizing envy.