“Hope is for people who wait. And I don't want to wait no more. I'm not scared anymore. I'm not scared of myself. Of my things. Of my fear. Of absolutely nothing. And that's music.”

“I am the consequence of a particular type of demographic movement, one that has always involved paying a high price. But I don't know much about styles or genres. I only know notes and chords.”

“I feel what I sing, and I sing what I feel. Really, that's all I can do.”

“I find inspiration in everything.”

“I have a very big conflict with the individualization of love. I feel like it's egotistical to just love one person when you can love so many of them. I feel so much love that I declare myself a lover of all.”

“I live in a universe in which blame doesn't exist. I don't believe in being at fault; I believe in taking responsibility for your actions. If I do something wrong, I take responsibility for it.”

“I love house music. I love all music.”

“I loved Michael Jackson and Madonna. I styled my hair like Whitney Houston.”

“I sing against emotional dictatorships, and against the imposition of one person over another, in the name of love.”

“I think that at one moment you're apt for one thing, and at the next moment you're apt for something else.”

“I was always the only black in the movie theater, the only black in class, the only black in the library, the only black in the discotheque. I always felt observed and judged.”

“I'm not scared about saying what I think.”

“It has cost me a great deal to become myself. I don't want to be another person.”

“Las Vegas is a very strange place. It's a place of broken dreams.”

“Sure, I know that I cannot speak in proper English. I know that I can't sing in proper English. I don't care.”

“They kicked me out of the church when I'm a little girl because they said I'm singing like a dog. They didn't want me to sing there anymore.”