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.

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.

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

I love when rappers have a off-beat, very abstract timing, and he certainly did.And any rapper who really approaches rapping with the art form of songwriting melodically - I know a bunch of rappers who actually go in before they write the lyrics and come up with the melody. And you can hear and feel that difference so much when that's the case.

Any decision I make is based on myself, and the only person I have to give an explanation to is God.

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.