Most of the time, particularly with this record, 'The Light of the Sun,' I really just been standing in front of a microphone and blacking out musically, you know. I'd come back a couple hours later and there's six songs from beginning to end, you know? I don't know what I'm going to say. I don't know how I'm going to say it.

Lately I've been going to all these high schools talking to the students, answering their questions, listening to what they have to say. It has been an incredible journey to be around them and try to give them what my mother gave me.

One of the things I love about Africa is the amount of dignity and respect and humility you see all the time. You don't realise how often you're disrespected until you are surrounded by respect.

I just think it's silly to be stingy with compliments. If you see someone and they strike you as beautiful in any way, why not let them know?

I think what irks me is that I feel like women are really being compartmentalized physically, and it's been done so much that now we're doing it to ourselves. I don't like it.

To be a queen of a household is a powerful thing.

It excites me when a person puts their whole self in a song or rhyme, or instrument. It fills me.