Always follow your own path.

When it came time to be a professional rapper, I wouldn't sign anything without reading it. There was no way I was going to have people make decisions for me or wake up one day and find that I was broke because I never bothered to read a contract.

Let your inner queen's voice come through loud and clear. Be strong, be authentic, be you, and you'll do her proud.

I really don't know how to be anyone else, and whenever I try to be anyone else, I fail miserably. Or I disappoint myself. It doesn't build my self-esteem, and it doesn't help me grow me at all.

My mother and I definitely got to a point where we had to have a real conversation and talk woman to woman, or daughter to mother, friend to friend - just off the record, clear the air and communicate. I didn't want to drive my mama crazy, but at the same time, I had to do, I had to learn, I had to grow and she understood that. She knows me better than anyone else on the planet so I tried to think about that.

When I was around 18, I looked in the mirror and said, 'You're either going to love yourself or hate yourself.' And I decided to love myself. That changed a lot of things.

My mom was my main influence growing up, and Phylicia Rashad reminded me a lot of my mother, just the way she handled certain things, she was... not soft-spoken but smooth-spoken. Just very calm, cool, collected about things.