I wanted out of my record deal with EMI. They wanted me to record one type of album; I wanted to record the type of music I wanted to make.

Madonna's not the best singer in the world, but she was awesome with her entertainment and all of her shock tactics and stuff and that's where it began. She then inspired all sorts of other girls to do that. But I don't know, I just think music's kind of important too. So you've gotta know where that line is especially when you are good at singing.

If you give yourself too much time, you kind of over-obsess about the music. It's not supposed to be like that.

There's always a silver lining to every cloud and everything has to happen for a reason and if everything's really challenging, then you can make it into a positive.

People will download the music for free and they'll pay for it if they want to give you a compliment. They don't have to pay for it. And the only way the artist can make money was by touring 'cause the record label didn't take that money. Unfortunately now, cause the record company's not making money from the downloads, now they want to take money away from everything.

People say I'm the white Aretha Franklin. I wish I was her.

It's not a deliberate thing. It's not like I was rejecting the UK, which is what the papers said. It's just that when you spend a lot of time in your formative years around an accent, you're going to pick it up. I had been living in LA for a bit and that's what happened.