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.

I started performing at two or three on a tape recorder, one of those little flat recorders where you just push play and record.

My second mother is my maternal grandmother. Her name is Thelma. She also gave me a very powerful medicine; she made sure that I knew my role as a young lady and as someone with moral structures and principles. She taught me that if I was going to be involved with anything, whether it be spirituality, music, or some skill, that I have to practice.

Whenever I think about funk music, it has a look - and that's how it sounds.

I just love expressing my joy and my mind through what I wear, or how I cook, or how I dance, or how I write or perform a song - how I move.

There are millions and billions of atoms of memory of all kinds of musical themes in me.

My mom was the Diana Ross of our clan. She was always up-to-date, and always knew what to do and what not to do in a fashion sense.