My first, my birth mother - her name is Queenie - she gave me a powerful medicine when I was a child. She told me that, "I was the best," and it helped me so much.

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 learning from them! Everyone says that, but it's true. You learn more about yourself from them than from any other lesson.

I was the bohemian in my family, the "this is my favorite shoe and I don't care if it has tape around it" kind of person. The tape could become a fashion statement. Or a political statement.

I don't plan how many people I work with. I don't charge anything. It's for my own learning, and I just enjoy being the welcoming committee. I became a doula by default.

I believed in myself, and I've always worked very, very hard as an artist, and I am an artist in every sense of the word.

When it comes to fashion or any high art, you have to have a combination of delicacy, along with taste.