I have a Pinterest, and if you look there you'll see the things I really like and adore, have crushes on, and there's a lot of stuff from Riccardo's [Tisci] line on there.

Society has a problem with female nudity when it is not . . . ”—Badu pauses to get her words together; she wants this point to be very clear—“. . . when it is not packaged for the consumption of male entertainment. Then it becomes confusing.

I actually started writing it because I was inspired by my own personal growth.

My fourth mother, my godmother, she passed away a couple years ago - her name was Gwen. She was the theater director over at the gym where I grew up and learned about all those awesome things I told you about already. She was the one who taught me terms like "upstage" and "downstage," all those technical things about the art of what I do - how to breathe what I see, how to move. They were all her tactics, not anything learned or given to me through a theory, but rather by her natural abilities.

The girls just like to be in the shoes. They like to scuff up the floors and walk around in high-heeled shoes that are too big for them, all over the house.

But now I realize that this record business really needs me. No one else is trying to take a chance or do something different.

If you invite negativity in, you have to feed it and hang out with it. Best not to invite it in.