I have to have lemon and honey. I have to have apple cider vinegar, Braggs. And I have to have either Red Vines or Twizzlers. These things, you know, are the things that help my vocal performance.

Yonkers made me strong and made me believe in myself, because so many people would doubt you and not believe. There are people that would believe in you, but the environment was so harsh, nobody wanted you to get out, you know?

I'm my worst critic, and I like the fact that I can listen to myself now and make fun of myself, listen, make changes - 'Oh, man, that's messed up. Okay, I need to work on that; I need to work on this.'

So as long as I'm a human being and I'm not perfect, I'm able to say I'm having some growing pains. Because in order to sustain where you are once you made such a breakthrough that everyone is looking at you, now everyone is like, 'Ooh, is she gonna make a mistake?' Yes, I'm going to make a mistake. Yes, I'm still gonna do things.

It hurts when you have to smile and you don't want to smile, but the best thing to do is to smile.

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

By the time I was a teenager, when I went outside the house, it was about hip-hop all the time. Nothing but hip-hop, block parties.