You were diagnosed with type 2 diabetes in 1999 and talked about "sneaky symptoms" that crept up on you. Can you share some of those with us?

Yeah, it ran in my family, but you often think that it's going to happen to someone else, never you. I thought I had a cold. I was sweating all the time. I was urinating. I couldn't even quench my thirst. And for two weeks I felt like I had a cold with fever, so for two weeks I was taking over-the-counter medicine. And, finally, I was like this is too weird. Let me go to the doctor, and before I could get to the appointment, I had to go to the emergency room and I found out my blood sugar was 500 and that I developed type 2 diabetes. And I say to people it's like a blessing and a curse, because there's no cure for it but you can manage it. It's like the largest wake up call in your life.

You're a Louisiana boy. How has your diet changed?

I put out a book recently, 'Body with Soul,' because down [in Louisiana] you know everything has a ton of butter and sugar. Rich food is a part of life. We used to say, you see a skinny chef, they must not be good. They don't eat their own food! But I've completely changed now. I do a healthier version of red beans and rice. I don't fry the chicken. I've worked it out to still enjoy some of those things with a lot less fat and a lot less sugar. I put the recipes in the book.

You lost some weight following the gastric bypass. Talk about that a bit.

I've now unadopted two words: diet and exercise. So I am now "healthy lifestyle" and "move." You can say to the average person, let's go dancing tonight and they're like "Really, let's go!" And you say to someone let's go exercise, and they're like, "Maybe I can do it tomorrow." I was trying to do the diet and exercise but it wasn't dropping the weight fast enough, so the gastric bypass was a last-ditch effort for me, and getting the weight off drastically reversed the issue of type 2 diabetes. I just had to do something really quick and drastic.

Have you gained a lot of the weight back since then?

I have gained 10 pounds. It's because I've changed my lifestyle. But you have to want to change it and it's really hard. I'm going to be dealing with weight issues for the rest of my life. I wanted to do the book as a guy who was the guy with the weight problem talking to people with the weight problem as opposed to the gym rat who maybe had been 12 pounds overweight their entire life and works out eight hours a day. So I wanted to be the real person talking to the real people.

Talk about your experience with the book.

I got a chance to show people what I do on a daily basis, and I tell them I don't want to be perfect; I just want to be pretty good. So I don't want to beat myself up over things. I think the whole diet thing and the reason I don't like that word is that if you do something all the time, say, I'm not going to eat anymore bread, there's going to be one day you fall off and have a mountain of bread. So I just adapt and make healthier choices. If you do that, you start to put that into your daily regimen. And just move. Just walk. On the book tour, people said, 'It's really dangerous in my neighborhood.' Go walk in a mall. Just go walk. Just window shop. Just walk up and down the mall five or six times.

How is this season of 'American Idol' different from all of the others?

We say it every year, but I think it's better than the others. This year, just different people showed up with different voices. You've got all kinds of different singers. You've got so many styles and things jumping off. I think this is one of my favorite seasons, but the boys are definitely blazing.

A few weeks back, Joanna Pacitti was yanked from the show's roster and replaced by 26-year-old Felicia Barton. What are your thoughts on that?

It's unfortunate. I don't know all the details about it but it's just always unfortunate when that happens. I'm sure in the next week or so I'll find out the details of what went on. But the rules are pretty stringent.

So you don't think any semi-professionals should be on the show?

I don't think it's that, but if you haven't had a deal for a while and you've lost your way, that's okay, but if you have a current situation, I think it's really hard to say that that's fair to the others.

What's your take on all the swirl around the Chris Brown-Rihanna incident?

Once again, it's really, really unfortunate. I saw them together at Clive [Davis]'s party on the night of the incident, and they're just two very young talented people. Hate to see it go down that way, know what I'm saying? Every move is documented, and the pressures for a young kid being in this today ... man, I can't even imagine. It's the stuff you hate hearing about. Like, oh no, not them! I think everyone who really knows them and everyone who is a fan of theirs is just saddened by it. You hate to see it happen to them, and you know they're really young and dealing with a lot, but there's no excuse for bad behavior of any kind. It's just unfortunate.

What do you think of Jennifer Hudson bouncing back?

I love her. She was my wild card that season, and I believed in her the day we met her and the day she auditioned. And I'm so elated that it happened to her. And she's an inspiration to all of us. To come back and be dealing in these times of what she's gone through, is just unbelievable, it's unfathomable. I look at her, she now inspires me.

What made you produce your own dance show 'America's Best Dance Crew'?

I grew up in the hood, and dance crews were always around. They had their [matching] shirts. They'd perform at the swap meet, at whatever. I was at the international hip-hop competition, and Harold and Karen Schwartz invited me down and I said, "Yo, if we tweak this and made this about crews" because that's what's not on TV. 'Dancing with the Stars,' 'So You Think You Can Dance,' those are great, but no one is doing the crew thing, the inner city. And the inner city now is black, white, green, yellow, it's everybody now. So it really came up. I'm really proud of it. I'm really proud of MTV. We're in our third season. It's edgy, it's young, it's interesting. People are dancing as much in the stands as they are onstage. And I love the fact that we bring the party and there's no alcohol involved. Nobody even thinks about alcohol and we're having a good time. That's when you know you have something.

You've worked with Journey and you've just about worked with everyone. Anyone you'd like to work with?

I'd love to do something with Norah Jones. I think she's so gifted. I'd love to work with Mary [Blige]. I love talented people. That's what gets me excited and that's what I thrive on. I also really love discovering new talent.

What are you listening to you these days?

I listen to a fair bit of gospel. I love J Moss. I love Karen Clarke, Kim Burrell. Smokie Norful is just oh my God! He's incredible. I listen to a lot of classical music. I listen to a lot of ska music, and I've been listening to a lot of hip-hop. The last few days, I've been rolling to some new Flo Rida. Flo's my boy. I listen to a little bit of everything. And then Van Hunt, we're making a new record right now. He's got two amazing songs. I love music, honestly.

You're the hardest working man in show business. Is there some new aspect of the business that you'd like to explore?

Well, what do they say? The harder you work, the luckier you become. I'm thinking about getting into the film thing. We've got a dance movie that we're about to get involved with. I'd love to get into the film side, and we're constantly making TV shows. And we're constantly putting out new music on the label.