I suppose I like to give people something to talk and think about. I can just be the person that kind of put a message in the bottle to see where it ends up.

I always tell people that my creativity lies in the belly of the beast and that's exactly what it is. A lot of people think that 'dark' is a bad concept, but I think it's a beautiful thing because that's mostly where your best work comes from. You can say it's dark, but you splash so much colour on it from what's inside you. Everybody always puts negative connotations on the idea of darkness.

I want the people making this music to stick to what they know in terms of ensuring that they remain true to that and the authenticity. Don't be afraid to be original and explore of course, but don't necessarily abandon certain standards in order to try to appeal to other people.

Every artist, to me, should know why they're doing what they're doing. You shouldn't create simply because it sounds good to you. That's not a real response to me.

Well, when you think music-wise, and if you hang with me or you see me or whatever, the average person will be like 'oh yeah, she probably raps'. This is that stereotype and then I do what I do, so they're more like 'oh, I wasn't expecting this whatsoever'. This especially links with the idea of being a woman in this kind of work and within the footwork genre.

If you create something, it really should mean something more than that to you. I had to grow into all of this though, through a learning process. I didn't wake up one day and just say, 'Yeah, that's Jlin, there it is'. That's why I said it took my entire life to make this album and it comes back to having that comfort zone - if you don't have one, the more progress you make and the more creative you become over time.

Happy is already a state, so if you create something that's happy... OK, wonderful... but when you're in a place of distress or trauma, there are so many more directions that can go in to me. Something that's happy can only truly go in one direction, whereas with something like distress, anger, trauma, there are so many more interesting possibilities that those emotions can create.