Survival is my primary instinct...it's out of my control. It's stronger than me. It's an outside force, a voice that says 'do this for your life or it will devour you.'

I think I'm doing a service to black women by portraying myself as a sex machine. I mean, what's wrong with being a sex machine, darling? Sex is large, sex is life, sex is as large as life, so it appeals to anyone that's living, or rather it should.

I was the only black girl at my junior high school. I had an afro, a Jamaican accent, I looked really old.

Crying is not a weakness. It's something that should be able to work for you. It should also be a strength. I think if you can cry when you feel like crying it's a strength. If you feel like crying and you can't cry, that's a weakness. That means you're holding all that stuff inside.

In the Seventies and Eighties we all had our fun, and now and then we went really too far. But, ultimately, it required a certain amount of clear thinking, a lot of hard work and good make-up to be accepted as a freak.

When you become such a strong personality in music, it's hard for people to accept you as a different character.

Survival is my primary instinct...it's out of my control. It's stronger than me. It's an outside force, a voice that says 'do this for your life or it will devour you.'