I definitely, at times, felt the pressures of life similar to the pressures anyone would feel growing up. The only difference was that maybe more people were aware of mine. But, if anything, I changed the pressure from negative to positive. So, instead of thinking everybody wanted to see me fail, I decided everybody wanted to see me win, since I wanted to see myself win.

If there's a certain song that I want to reach a certain person or certain type of person, that's when I play it for people.

Whenever I get to talk to young girls like me I always say, 'The only difference between you and I is that I know that I'm special and you just don't know that you are yet.'

Looking into my future, I don't always want to be in front of the camera. I want to be behind the camera and bring to life those family members of mine or people that I knew or the kids I grew up. I want people to know the different facets of black people, brown people, all people.

When you've been blessed, you have to share your gifts, and you also have to help others give their gifts away.

I always try to set a positive example for my generation and promote confidence.

We have African-Americans and black people getting behind the scenes more and more, we get true black images in television and film...because we have black people behind them. They can tell stories from those points of view and bring to life those characters who have yet to be shown. As long as we have people behind the camera just as much as in front of the camera doing the work, then we'll always be good.