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

It was only for two years, and I jumped from family to family. It's very scary.

I'm a singer who thinks like a rapper.

I mean, I know my heart is not clean, and your heart is not clean, and none of our urban hearts are clean. But you can be washed again.

Music makes us want to live. You don't know how many times people have told me that they'd been down and depressed and just wanted to die. But then a special song caught their ear and that helped give them renewed strength. That's the power music has.

As a child I always wanted to be a singer. The music my mother played in the house moved me - Aretha Franklin, Chaka Khan, Mahalia Jackson. It was truly spiritual. It made you understand what God was. We are all spirits. We get depressed. But music makes you want to live. I know my music has saved my life.

We are all just a work in progress.