I'm sure I would have been considered a more significant artist if I was a singer-songwriter. It's just not the way I roll. I love being a curator and a musicologist. People write me letters and thank me for turning them on to Fred McDowell and Sippie Wallace, and that's partly my job this time around.

I made my first album, and I guess it wasn't a fluke, because now I'm on my 16th.

We can choose, you know, we ain't no amoeba.

I hope I'm an integrous person who cleans up their messes when I've been a jerk.

Finding great songs is the hard part of my gig - it's not as hard as songwriting, that's much more daunting - but I love playing other people's music.

I'm proud of the way I rearrange and put things together, like a chef who makes a great meal, or a filmmaker who puts together a story - it's casting, editing, cinematography.

I have been really heartened by how much coverage there has been about inequality of pay across the board, between the entertainment industry and almost every industry worldwide. And just the problem of young women not getting an education, not being able to have an equal position in the cultures all around the world.