When I write a song, I tap into the emotion and the feeling and then I use the emotion to write the words. It's the opposite when I act. I use the words and tap into the emotion.

Power doesn't have to be on such a big scale for powerful things to occur. Within your own home, you can be a powerful woman as a mother, influencing your children's lives.

Anytime you share life stories with other people, you know, you are acknowledging their humanity and kind of accessing some things about yourself, and other people start to expect things about themselves. It's kind of like a fellowship.

Africa doesn't leap on you immediately; it seeps slowly, and it's incredibly important to be respectful and humble there.

I've always been a firm believer that soul music never dies. The artists we still listen to today, years after their music was first heard are mostly soul artists; Donny Hathaway, Marvin Gaye, Chaka Khan. We still sing along to all of them with our hearts.

Heartbreak was the impetus to me writing poems and music in the first place.

For me, hair is an accoutrement. Hair is jewelry. It's an accessory.