I do love being onstage. And I've always loved playing a character and being watched doing that.

Just reading that - just reading that a person can be black and still perform in blackface, making fun of black people for a living, and at the same time be a genius and be an incredible entertainer and at the same time be extremely conflicted and feel like - just feel terrible for doing that, essentially, which is what Bert Williams felt, from what I gather, from what I read - all of that just made - was so incredible to me.

I remember in school - in elementary school - I used to recite poems. We'd have to recite poems. And I would always just, like, roll on the floor, like, just make it such a huge, melodramatic portrayal of whatever it was.

I remember as a child I just would copy everyone else's handwriting, and now I have sort of a version of my sister's handwriting. And I feel like - sometimes I feel that way for my voice.

The more I listened and became obsessed with singers, I feel like the more I realized that I had my own little thing that I could do.

I did everything I could to not bring in any of the - any of the technical things I got from classical into jazz. And I did everything to really base it on my speaking voice and to just not try to make it sound pretty.

It takes me a lot of time, and it's almost frustrating for the guys sometimes because they're waiting for a new song. And I - it's just so important for me to get the perfect, exact, right song.