Being honest is my job. That's what music is for me.

I consider my musical ability to be a gift from the Creator. It's not that I try to work hard or nothing like that, it's a gift, it was given to me, and I appreciate it.

[The Land] is a film that just happens to be directed and written by a Puerto Rican guy with a black dad. It seemed like a very natural, human interaction between people who all just came from one common cesspool of bad luck.

I have a master plan as an artist. I've always said I'm not going to be punching nobody's clock. I will work as an artist to survive in this world.

The reason why you don't see people looking like me is because I don't encourage that. I encourage you to be you.

My fifth mother is Mother Nature - the things I had to learn on my own, the understanding I had to come to and still have to come to as a young woman, as a responsible mother, a responsible granddaughter and child. She teaches me willpower, honesty, and the things we need to heal ourselves from moment to moment.

I create my own calm and I keep my balance, because I know that it's not really me, by myself... The Creator always gives me the energy.