I'm really excited that the fashion industry is evolving, doing a much better job at representation, with women of color, women of different shapes, sizes, and creeds. It's been a long time coming... There were issues of tokenism, issues of misrepresentation. I'm optimistic that I see the change, the conversation that these archetypes gotta go. We can be very political and have long weaves down to our asses.

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.

I have to learn how to say no a lot. Life is too short for anything else.

I just feel so much joy and gratitude that people have connected to it in this way. The biggest reward that I could ever get is seeing women, especially black women, talk about what this album ['A Seat at the Table'] has done, the solace it has given them.

Our mother always taught us to be in control of our voice and our bodies and our work, and she showed us that through her example. If she conjured up an idea, there was not one element of that idea that she was not going to have her hand in. She was not going to hand that over to someone. And I think it's been an interesting thing to navigate, especially watching you do the same in all aspects of your work: Society labels that a control freak, an obsessive woman, or someone who has an inability to trust her team or to empower other people to do the work, which is completely untrue.

What's important is that my family and I are all good.

So over time, playing shows - after every show we would have pow-wow, I would have notes and we'd go over and we'd really restructure and re-do and now I feel really, really good about the show. But it's taken time.