What opens my heart is when my son wakes me up in the morning, nudging me and saying, 'Mommy, mommy!'

Hip-hop is not something we do, it's something we live. It's the way we dress, the way we talk... everybody bobbing to the same beat. It's a culture, and you have to find your own place in that culture. Top 10 or Top 40 can't dictate that. They can only dictate what's marketable.

In the morning, instead of saying to yourself, ‘I got to wake up’ say ‘I get to wake up!’

My first, my birth mother - her name is Queenie - she gave me a powerful medicine when I was a child. She told me that, "I was the best," and it helped me so much.

I think what makes people think that is because of things people write. It really doesn't have anything to do with the artist.

The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear.

Be you. Make sure you're saying something when you're saying something. It's important to sound like you, to feel like you, to be like you. Be you.