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.

I actually love my natural hair when it's in a twist out and it's been slept on for five days and revived by the steam of the shower.

I have gone through many difference phases in my love affair with hip-hop.It evolves, your taste. It sometimes deepens, in terms of what's out; sometimes it's not as deep in terms of what's out. So it's definitely an evolution. I don't ever claim to be a hip-hop head.

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.

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 have been writing songs since I was 9 years old, so writing has and always will be my first love and passion.