I always treat shows as though they could belong on either platform. I always design it for the bigger stage, but I love it on the smaller stage.

Dreams rise like the sun and set like the sun: One minute, it is high and bright; the next minute, you might lose it.

'Redemption' is about understanding myself and not worrying about my relationship with the industry.

Just as much as you need the people who love you, you need the people who doubt you - to prove them wrong.

People want to peg you as alternative R&B when they hear soul or see the color of your skin. It's comfortable when people see artists of color or artists that come from a different country to put that brand on us. It's just not as linear as that.

You have to put time into the art to do it, and you have to know that what you'll get out of it is not a financial or a fame thing. It'll just be the pleasure of being an artist. And I'm cool with that.

My grandmother had a Ph.D in library science, so I grew up in a library, and I would appreciate those books and the smell of them and how they'd have these series, and it was cool to me. I always felt like, if I had an opportunity, I'd create an album that felt like a series.

I'd only do a deal with a label if it allowed me to still be indie and have that indie mentality. I have to have creative control.

I love what a women embodies. I love our bodies; I love the way we communicate with our bodies. I love the way dance creates movement. It's art in motion.

Growing up, my parents were Roman Catholic - strict Catholics - from New Orleans. I understood the idea in the principle of spirituality. I noticed it in the stories that I read. The Trinity was something that was brought up consistently: the power of three. Things happened in threes, and I thought that was brilliant.

My music speaks of warriors. It speaks of women being kings and this sense of pride of being more, even though you have less.

When I get inspired, I give out free music. If you look at my track record from the beginning, that's always what I've done. I've never changed.

My director, Monty Marsh, is really awesome - I've been working with him for years now.

I had no idea that what I thought was my low wasn't really my low. That's what a lot of people think - then life reminds them, 'No, there's lower.'

'Redemption' sounds like a jubilee. Like a second line, if you will.

'The Red Era' is for everybody. Every gay, every fluid, every black, every white.

My dad was a teacher. He has a Masters in music. He taught elementary school, and he played gigs his whole life, and we lived good.

How many people can say they had Anna Wintour on a record? Not even an album, just a mixtape? It's audacious, disrespectful, and I feel like it's a little bit raw, and that's what Dirty Money is.

Fashion is my lover on the side, but I am married to music.

You don't need validation from other people. You've gotta find it within yourself and sit in it and roll with it.

Anything that creates fear, I want to conquer it.

You don't know how far you can go until you push it.

I wake up every day in a different headspace, so on any given day, my hairstyle will change.

Be exactly who you are. You can fit in any space you see yourself in. Be fearless.