I always try and stay one step ahead of people, not looking like I looked like last week, so I can be as anonymous as possible and part of it is just for me. It is fun to just come up with new and bizarre colors for each area of your body and things like that, but there are some parts of it that I just keep wanting to negate myself. I hate waking up in the morning and recognizing the woman in the bathroom mirror.

These days, I find I'm applying a little more patience to my process. If I look back on my work, I can see those songs I bailed on could have been better, that had those great two verses and then I kind of coasted from there. These days, if a song is giving me trouble, I put it aside and pick it up later, and keep doing that, for a year if I have to, until it takes shape.

I walk like I'm on a mission 'cause that's the way I groove. I got more and more to do and less and less to prove.

What I like about being independent [in the music industry] is that anybody who does play the album on the radio and anybody who does choose to write in the media does so because they want to, because they like it or because they find something interesting there, not because they have to.

I am not an angry girl, but it seems I've got everyone fooled. Every time I say something they find hard to hear, they chalk it up to my anger and not to their own fear. Imagine you're a girl just trying to finally come clean, knowing full well they prefer you dirty and smiling.

I still define myself by the places that I've been.

When all you can think of is your own personal problems, you have nothing to give to your society. If you're trying to figure out where your next meal is coming from, you can't go march on Washington.