All the women in my family were very creative.

What singing means to me, I never did consider myself a singer, I just let people watch me feel music and how it comes through me. I've worked on it and practiced a lot. I mean, music, I dance to it, and singing is just one way of getting it out of me.

I think we [with Riccardo Tisci] share a sensibility about art - we pull from the ancient future.

I solidify his [ Riccardo Tisci] vision and what he is trying to manifest, make it a crystal or solid thing because of the relationship I have with my culture and what my music means to him.

I have an organization called BLIND [Beautiful Love Incorporated Nonprofit Development], so named because even though my interest is in the black community, because that's where I grew up and that's where I'm most skilled in fixing things, it doesn't end there.

We as Black people have to tell our own stories. We have to document our history. When we allow someone else to document our history the history becomes twisted and we get written out. We get our noses blown off.

I remember when I signed with Kedar Entertainment through Universal Records. It was my first record deal and it's the one I still have now. At that time, there had been a couple of opportunities I was almost given, but at the last minute the giver came back and told me it couldn't happen.