I view my hair and clothes as functional art.

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.

You don't have to believe everything you think.

I had the opportunity, as a child, to grow up in a community center where I was exposed to theater, music, art, and computer science; things that I would have never had the opportunity to even meet had it not been for those people taking time out of their schedules, helping us as children to travel all over the world while sitting in a gymnasium. That's what I did before I was a musician, before I was a recording artist, I was a teacher and a community leader.

What makes me furious, not just because we're in an interview, but I don't like when writers take your words and put them somewhere else, in the wrong context in their own article about you.

I thought it was cool how [ Riccardo Tisci] wanted to blend Africa and Asia because they relate to each other in so many different ways.

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.