'My Life' is soft, with notes of pear and gardenia, but still bold, with a woody base.

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.

You can look at my palm and see the storm coming. Read the book of my life and see I've overcome it.

I don't know what kind of God the rest of y'all are serving, but the God I serve says, 'Mary, you need to be the hottest thing this year, and I'm gonna make sure you're doing that.'

As a kid, I dreamed about being onstage.

I'm from the element of the streets that says that once you've made it, it's yours. But keep it to yourself.

You have to create different things, either through lighting or changing the format of the songs and how you're going to sing them, and even sometimes props.