There's a lot of situations where I feel irony involved when R&B and hip-hop is expressed in the indie worlds. There's a lot of times when I feel like the juxtaposition becomes a thing.

I actually was a ballet dancer - I studied ballet from three until 13 - but like very seriously, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a contemporary ballet dancer. I wanted to go to Juilliard.

Women face a lot of challenges every day - we have to stand firm in our walk and our intentions - but there are times when that weight feels too heavy, feels like a load that I just can't bear that day. I try to work through that in my art, whatever medium that might be. My live performance is based around the color red, and all the things that communicates as a woman to the world - fiery, really vocal, present, almost a kind of stubborn color - and redefining it as being very complex. Being able to express that complexity, I'm getting a lot better at that the older I've gotten.

You're just so excited that you have this record deal or this movie opportunity that you don't stand up for yourself and say, This is what I want to do.

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.

I think every generation has that movement of hip-hop that you know you're playing it and you definitely have that moment of like, "Why am I saying this so enthusiastically? Why am I so stoked and psyched to say these lyrics?"

So much of your identity in junior high is built on who you're with. You see the world through the lens of how you identify and have been identified at that time.