I write most of my songs to beats. I play around on guitar, but not enough to where I can compose my own stuff or play solos. I can accompany myself 'cause most songs are, like, four chords.
I was in art school, and we had all these random classes. We'd listen to a lot of Bollywood. I'd listen to Spanish music - and I don't even speak Spanish, but Hector Lavoe is amazing - we listened to French music like Edith Piaf. She's tight. I like cool vocal inflections; I like cool sounds. I pretty much listen to anything I think is good.
My biggest role model right now is Beyonce, just 'cause she is a very, very strong, powerful woman, and that's obviously the number one reason to be inspired by her. She is just killing every game there is to kill.
My pops passed when I was little. I didn't have a dad around to tell me certain things. I didn't have my biological mother.
Sex is biological, but gender is mental.
When I started singing, I was covering Lauryn Hill, Brandy, and all the girl groups of the '90s. It's just what I would listen to and what I was singing when anybody asked me to sing for them.
I just remember falling in love with the old Chris Brown music, where it was, like, that real R&B, and I love the radio smashes he's put out since then, but I go back to his older music for that R&B.
Me being so open just helps other people. People feel like they know me so much that they can talk to me all of the time about really personal things. Sometimes it's really nice and comforting. It depends on the person, whether they're creepy or not.
I want babies before I'm 25. I want to bring my babies on the road and bring them to concerts and raise them in the studio.
I'm a healthy eater, but I don't consider Chick-fil-A fast food.
There's girls that grew up like me and even worse, and they need to know that there is someone out there that can give them hope with my music. It's about inspiring people and helping people.
If I was to have a reality show, it wouldn't be a show based on my personal life. I'd want it to showcase me and my girls on tour, like living life as a young artist, not exposing what goes on in my family situations.
If my eyebrows are cool, if my eyeliner is popping, if I'm moisturized, then I can pretty much wear whatever I want. I think if your hair and your face are together, I think it's pretty much polished!
When you look at me, you can't really tell what I am, but I'm black, white, Native, Spanish, and a little bit of Filipino.
I used to think that love was giving up everything of yourself and giving it to the other person. Now, I've realized that love is when you have somebody that doesn't make you give up half of yourself.
Stardom is a crazy thought. If that's what my path is, then that's where I'm excited to be headed towards.
I think, as musicians, our music should be who we are. Sometimes it's not - it's someone else's. All heartfelt music and all honest music, it's who we are. Of course, our upbringing has everything to do with it.
I went from broke and homeless sleeping on couches. Couldn't even figure out what I was doing in Los Angeles. Now, I'm paying my own bills. I'm about to move my mama in with me at 19. I'm on tour now, and this is all off of one mixtape.
You start singing by singing what you hear. So everyone, when they first start singing, they naturally are singing like whatever they're hearing, because that's the only way you learned how to sing. So when I was growing up on Lauryn Hill, when I started singing her songs, I literally trained my voice to be able to do runs.
I hang out with the right people, my friends that I've had since the beginning. We go to the beach, take walks, paint, see our family - just normal things that people who become famous lose sight of.
