I do realize that I have a talent for making music. It wasn't anything expected, but I do think it's deserved, if that makes sense.

I want to be respected as a writer and, like I said, I was really sick of people saying I was a two dimensional character. I want more to my legacy, I guess.

I don't know [whether] if I didn't get paid, or my career didn't keep going where it goes, if I would keep doing music.

In the industry there's this whole mentality of working with someone who can open the door for you, but my whole thing is that I like my work to speak for itself. So I still do have that same mentality.

I'm a SoundCloud, online kind of artist. It's not like back in the day when everyone was like linking up physically to do music. But with the album, I did have my first experience with meeting with a producer and us making things from scratch.

Sometimes I start with the beat. Sometimes I can write something down and it takes me a while to figure out how I want to say it or the beat I want to say it to. I definitely like to live the experiences that I cover.

Coming into this, making music, I knew that was something that was going to be held over my head. Okay we get it, you're openly gay, but do you know how to rap? Can you really rap and deliver? And I feel like I have that pressure put on me that other artists don't. A lot of people don't have to focus on being so lyrical and actually putting on shows. Before anyone was gonna tell me I was bad, I was gonna prove that I was good.