I want to speak for people that may not feel like they're being spoken for at the moment. And I want to make a connection between the world around us and the charts.

I was very quiet until I got at the piano, and weekends, lunch breaks, after school, before school, I was just making music.

I feel like 'Next To Me' is a great introduction because it's a simple song that has a simple message for me. I wanted to introduce something that lyrically I'm proud of and introduces me both as an artist and as a writer.

I don't think there are any songs that I've written in the past that I now disagree. It's kind of like tattoos; I would never regret a tattoo, because it was how I felt at that time in my life. I don't think I've ever said anything that I would take back. So far, so good! I would probably change the music, or change how I sing it, maybe do it a little bit cooler, or a bit more grown-up. But I don't think that there are any lyrics that I regret.

Melody is the first thing that comes to me when I'm songwriting. I learned piano classically first, and then I went into soul, and so melody has always been the first. It's so important.

From when I was a kid I wanted to write. It was so important to me that I was writing my own material.

I wasn't intentionally trying to create my own path or be original, it was just I needed to say certain things and I needed to express myself, and that's how it came out.