Meditation has been a big change for me in a super-positive way. I see the result and strength and clarity - even my creativity is different and more connected. It might be 10 minutes a day; it might be 20 minutes a day. But every day in this crazy world, it's a sense of peace and purpose.

My mixed-race background made me a broad person, able to relate to different cultures. But any woman of colour, even a mixed colour, is seen as black in America. So that's how I regard myself.

I feel like B sides are always better, no matter whose record it is.

How terrible would it have been if I had come out with some watered-down version of who I am? People fell in love with the real me, and I still feel blessed that that was how the journey began.

But when I first fell in love with the piano, I knew it was me. I was dying to play.

You can be very fulfilled as a mother, but that can't be the only way you are fulfilled. What about being a woman? What about being yourself? Your awareness of what's happening in the world? It lives altogether in a way that makes a whole. I guess I'd say I'm the wholest I've ever been.

People don't expect me to be as funny as I am.