Ain't nothing coming easily in this life. Sometimes you gotta work, you gotta grow and it gotta hurt.

I didn't leave home until 27. I was an only child raised in Philadelphia by my mother and grandmother. My grandmother controlled the stove. She made a lot of potato meals - mashed potato, potato souffle, potato pancakes. When we didn't have electricity we ate romantically, by candlelight.

My earliest influence was Quincy Jones. I thought 'The Wiz' soundtrack was the most amazing thing I'd ever heard. It was my first record and you had Michael Jackson, Ted Ross, Nipsey Russell and Diana Ross on it. I even took it to show and tell in third grade!

If you can't help me grow, there's no point with you being in my life.

The highs, the lows, the peaks, the valleys, whatever, it's all going to go into the art, whether I'm singing or acting or whatever.

Once I started looking for a record deal, I had a trainer. And the trainer told me that I would never sell a record if I didn't lose weight.

I am a woman, I make mistakes. I make them often. God has given me a talent and that`s it.