There were things that had been weighing heavy on me for quite some time. And I went into this hole, trying to work through some of these things so that I could be a better me and be a better mom to Julez and be a better wife and a better friend and a better sister.

I think many people, especially from other cultures, just don't understand the role hair plays in Black women's lives.

I don't really have guilty pleasures. Anything musically that I fully, fully believe, is good no matter who the artist is, no matter what the marketing is behind it, I stand pretty firm.

I think there's just certain lyrics and certain forms of hip-hop that definitely rang true, again, to a lot of people's truth, but you don't necessarily want to hear someone using that as a just kind of a in-the-moment, fun, careless expression.

A lot of times I use live musicians, but I don't want it to have that live funky sound so I'll just take the best loop of a drum part and repeat it over and over and over again so that there's consistency and it feels a little bit more programmed. But I have a love/hate relationship with comping as well.

As an artist, everybody has the opportunity to celebrate and speak their truth.

The Hadley Street Dream is a tribute to making a vision come to life. My father built a compound on a dessert city block, he saw something in that space we couldn't see. It was years later the album was born right there on Hadley St. He built the studio I started recording the album at.