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.

I'm a woman who has gone through many heartaches, enough to dedicate my whole life to trying to figure them out.

I come from a long line of matriarchal women, and my greatest teachers were my mothers.

André and I are still best of friends, always have been and always will be. When our 18-year-old son, Seven, started high school, we both agreed to be in the same city, so André is in Dallas all the time, and we're always all together doing something.

What a frequency What a voice. I love Bilal. I couldn't imagine a music world without his voice.

I don't have any particular thing I do ritualistically. I do the same thing every day. I get up. Drink a lot of water. Have a wheatgrass shot. Drink some green juice. Eat as healthy as I can.

I think giving is a blind act that should come from a part of me that sees no discrimination (that's why I called it "blind").