If you see me as just the princess then you misunderstand who I am and what I have been through.

The international music scene has grown so much, and America is sort of following that.

I do not think I reinvent myself. Wearing my hair differently or changing my style of dress is playing dress-up. I don't take it too seriously.

I'm experimenting with my voice. Every day I do different things with it, and if I feel it's appropriate I do it on the record.

If critics have problems with my personal life, it's their problem. Anybody with half a brain would realize that it's the charts that count.

My father identified as a black man. No one asked him because he was clearly black. But people always ask me. If we were together, people would look at us in a really strange way. It sucked. As a little girl I had blond hair and they'd look at me, look at him, and be disgusted.

It's not easy that everything you do, everybody has to come in and critique it and give their opinion. Sometimes it does help me and sometimes it hurts me as a person. That's life. I have feelings.