'Redemption' is about understanding myself and not worrying about my relationship with the industry.
Fashion is my lover on the side, but I am married to music.
'Blackheart' was the moment for me to really open up and let people into the world that is me.
'Redemption' sounds like a jubilee. Like a second line, if you will.
My music speaks of warriors. It speaks of women being kings and this sense of pride of being more, even though you have less.
I connect so much with Peter Gabriel's sound because, to me, he always had that South African vibe. His drums were always something to move to: it was almost like Calypso. I'm a big fan.
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.
To create and do something no one else has done before - that feeling beats anything else I've felt.
My uncle is in the hall of fame for creating by hand some of the most intricate Indian Mardi Gras garb.
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.
When I was 4, I had a schedule. I was playing softball. My brother was playing football. My parents were teachers, and they'd owned businesses. We like to work hard. Work and then books. Books and then work. We just knew that we had to excel. It sounds militant, but trust me, it was fun.
When I was growing up, there was no one. There were very few black women in tech; there were very few black women in the fashion game. We didn't have our Grace Jones - Grace Jones was before my time. We didn't really have a lot of black women in electronic and punk who were celebrated in the same levels as, say, your big mega-superstars.
The black geeks of the world, we feel like we don't have a home.
There is a thing about women that needs to be understood. We don't sit well with being put in a certain place.
Just as much as you need the people who love you, you need the people who doubt you - to prove them wrong.
There's always going to be a fight between mainstream and underground because the mainstream is a very small bubble, and the underground scene is a very small bubble, and they both see themselves as secret societies. But I never saw it that way. I always thought music was open to all things.
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.
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 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.
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.
