When you lose someone that's really important to you, I feel like it's something that never really goes away. It's almost learning how to live with an empty feeling; it's weird. Something's always missing, but you kind of get used to it.
Just politics in general is a disgusting thing.
After my mother passed away, I felt as though I would never have a relationship as strong as the one that I had had with her. Then, after a lot of ups and downs, I started dating again - but I realised pretty quickly that I was never going to write cheesy love songs.
I want people to know that there is a light at the end of the tunnel.
'Lose My Cool' is the second track on my EP dedicated to a stage in the grieving process. This track represents anger. I really bottled a lot up after my mother passed, and one day, I couldn't handle it anymore and just exploded on all of my friends and family. It was a very passive way of dealing with things, not very healthy.
When I wrote 'Monsoon,' I always imagined the music video being shot in India. The song had so much to do with my time in India with my mother as well as leaving her in India during the monsoon season to visit my family in N.Y. It really was a dream come true when I was given the opportunity to shoot in India.
I don't meditate anymore, and I wouldn't call myself a Buddhist nowadays, though I do chant mantras here and there depending on the situation.
My friends and family unknowingly tend to get in the way when I'm in my creative zones.
Writing by myself in my bedroom is definitely where I feel most creative.
My mother was a Tibetan Buddhist.
After my mother passed away, I really felt there were things that I hadn't said or things that I did say that I kind of regretted saying.
I stayed in Miami and New York until I was about nine, and then we moved to India and stayed there for about four years and eventually moved to Berlin. It was definitely a cultural experience in its fullest, and I absorbed a lot. I don't regret any of it.
I dream of collaborating with Q-Tip and Timbaland - it's all producers. I'd really like to work with Drake and DRAM. The Weeknd would be dope. The list goes on and on. If Michael Jackson were alive, I'd love to collaborate with him.
Music can be a way for me to think back a lot of the time, almost like an opening into all the nostalgia I never express.
My mother definitely plays a big role in my life and in my work. The majority of what I've created has to do with her passing and how I dealt with losing the most important person in my life.
I would say the first concert I ever went to is my earliest memory. I was four and already obsessed with Michael Jackson. We were living in Munich at the time. My mom, being the best person ever, somehow managed to get us two tickets to the '97 Michael Jackson History World Tour.
I studied a lot from bossa nova, and I used to listen to it a lot as a kid because my mum would play it. I even wanted to learn Portuguese in high school so I could sing in it.
I get so insecure about studio sessions.
I put a lot of pressure on myself.
'Heatwave' just fits the feel of summer for me.
