I can go out raw with nothing, and my fans would still be happy, but I feel that I owe it to them to give them almost like a Broadway musical at this point in my life. I have to give them something more, so I do have to think of different ways to do it.

The music business is really, really small. The real music is becoming almost extinct, if you don't stay true to who you are.

In the studio you can really concentrate on performing the song where as on stage you also have to worry about connecting with so many people, they're definitely different.

When I`m going to do a Christmas album I had to put my mind in Christmas mode. I had to go back to being a child and remembering all of that. When I go to do a project, I'm serious about it, so I wrap my world around it, and it becomes Christmastime for me and I'm singing songs like it's Christmas day.

From being a little girl in the projects, going through all of the mess that I was going through, to ending up at the Inauguration for the first African-American president, I'm speechless right now because I never thought I'd - I never ever - I couldn't even see that far. Even when I ended up in the music business I couldn't see that.

I wish I had an extra day with my mom sometimes. Or another hour in the day with my family, husband and children.

I didn't never have to go to a therapist. I just always put it in a song and you heard me.