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 wasn't listening to that much classical music - not much more than anything else. I was really lucky to have parents who loved all kinds of music.

I never wanted to sound clean and pretty. I always wanted to have kind of a certain natural quality to my voice, and I wish it were more rough than it is.

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 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.

I think I'm fascinated with history and - just in general. And I'm always interested in how did - how did this come to be? Why is this the way it is? And even singing classical voice, I quickly became more and more interested with early music, baroque voice. And that became an obsession to me - just figuring out how - who are the ancestors of whatever it is.

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.