I really hope that people feel permission to talk about their own troubles, but also to celebrate themselves.

It's hard for black women to ask for help. We think we don't need it. We're used to being in pain and living with it.

Sometimes it's just rejecting stereotypes, sometimes it's creating work. Sometimes it's just blocking out the noise.

There's so much about the strong black woman stereotype that makes us forget that we do need and deserve help and care.

Where I would usually backspace, I stop and say, "You know what? This is important, that I say how I feel and don't sugarcoat it, and don't avoid it."

I think that fear came from, "Okay, I'm going to have Beyoncé in the title, and people are just going to think, it's Beyoncé poems. It's light and fun." I was kind of super-conscious of that. It's kind of like this weird trick I'm playing, where you're like, "What an interesting, fun cover, and then the name Beyoncé." Then you open it, and it's just about my depression. All of it belongs together.

There's something about us using the word fascism and thinking about, "What is it? What does it mean, and what are the tenets of it?".