In general, I think the best thing to do is to connect with other females. I love meeting other female artists and feeling like we're all rooting for each other. I think that's shifted even more.

As I got older, I started to do it more and more, and I wanted to learn all of the different types. I grew up doing modern, so I wanted to learn ballet, tap, jazz, and African - just everything.

For the name Lion Babe, we are a little avant-garde, a little left. And with bands like Blondie, Pink Floyd, or Jamiroquai, you don't know they're bands, you just kind of hear the name and you're like 'What is it?' so that was the kind of thing we wanted to do.

It's definitely evolved from where it started - for 'Treat Me Like Fire,' I wanted something extremely wild because I was going to be running through the woods and I wanted it really nappy and crazy.

My main goal was to not tell my mom anything or anyone anything. Even within our family, we like to do it ourselves, we like to be our own boss, and we don't like asking for help.

Back then, it's weird, because I wasn't consciously thinking about it and I think that's why the doors opened and I had the opportunity. It was a big shift and I realized that you can plan and think your life is going somewhere, but you also have to surrender to what opportunities present themselves and really go for those as well.

I had been with a guy for seven years and I was done with that. I wanted to reinvent my whole life and change my hair - I'd had brown, straight extensions forever - and I just wanted to get rid of that, to shed skin, and really just be independent.