I love Lauryn Hill, Tracy Chapman, Fiona Apple. People like that. People you can really connect to on the most basic human level.
Growing up, I listened to a lot of everything - I fell in love with music, when I discovered people like Lauryn Hill and Tracy Chapman, people whose voices I could really feel, people with a lot of soul. That's what I'm drawn to as a musician: Anybody that has their own voice and their own point of view.
Every human is so layered. And 'Brain,' that theme is about - I'm just such a sensitive person, and I can pick up people's energies.
I just think it looks so cool when a woman has a dirty martini. She looks so powerful.
I feel like my dream animal would be a mermaid that could fly and also live in the trees. She has a nest, almost like a bird. She feeds her babies like a bird, like, chews the food first and then feeds it to them through her mouth.
Music is almost like a therapy for me. It helps keep me centered and think straight. Before I discovered it, I was walking around, and it felt like there were 25 extra pounds of gravity on my shoulders. It's like you're mute or something.
I haven't even had to learn, but it's just this natural thing to be able to express any emotion I have through the tone of my voice.
I like wearing oils. Perfume makes me nauseous sometimes. It's too strong.
The most personal thing about me is my music. The most honest, pure thing in my whole life.
Fashion is a huge part of music and of who you are. It really sets the mood for a show, and it's fun to play around with it. You can get really creative in photo shoots as well. You know, just having fun with it.
Femininity can be a powerful thing.
It's a powerful thing to be able to write a song. Even the least powerful feeling - like insecurity - that makes you feel weak when you experience it, when you write about it, you are powerful.
I listened to pretty much anything that I could really feel, where I felt like the artist had to write those songs, where you can feel their soul and the pain and the happiness and love and everything.
I got into writing music when I was, like, 14 or 15. It was a very private thing for me because I used it as an outlet and emotional release. I kept it very close to myself and didn't tell too many people about it.
What people would qualify as R&B is, for me, just soul. And I love honesty and soul and heavy, crunchy beats that move you and make you breathe a little bit faster.
I know every line to 'The Little Rascals.'
Human emotion is more interesting than anything. Everything that is so overtly sexual is not real. Real emotion is sexy. It's vulnerable and raw.
Real pain hurts so bad. When you've gone through something and you've overcome it, you're able to heal other people.
I've felt real pain, and sometimes I channel the exhale coming out of that to write, and those are the songs that give me the most power and the most strength.
It's a big theme throughout my music to just embrace everything about your own mind and to always feel powerful. It's not just a feminine thing, but for men, too, whether they feel weak, or strong or crazy or reclusive. I want everyone to feel powerful no matter what little beasts they have in their head.
