If anyone can figure out how to balance my celebrity and my dual careers in music and film, it's me. I don't feel frightened; I feel challenged.

I felt about life and the way I felt about my children was so deep and profound. It was the first time I'd felt anything like that. I knew as an artist that it was going to make a huge difference in everything that I did.

Puffy produced four of the tracks on the album. Those are the four songs that are collaborations between Puffy and me. And he gives me my space to work even when we work together, like with my producer and my vocal coach.

I just never really gave myself any credit. And because of that, nobody else did either. You mirror what the world mirrors to you.

Sometimes you have to explore the darkness to get to the light and get back to who you are.

I'm not stupid. I would like to have some businesses that grow so I won't have to be out there on the road when I'm 44.

My own style influences have to do with where I grew up, in the Bronx, and I still like to wear bangles and big hoops!