I always knew who I was, but everyone else wanted to me to be their 'idea' of the 'right' artist. At times, I even believed them.
I'm not mainstream. You gotta find me.
I promised myself that I wouldn't be afraid to be who I was when I chose to do this music thing.
I love what a women embodies. I love our bodies; I love the way we communicate with our bodies. I love the way dance creates movement. It's art in motion.
Hair pieces and head dresses have always been something that's been part of my culture.
I don't really feel there's rules in my everyday wear. I kind of do whatever the hell I want to do.
It's a lot of work being an indie artist, but it's worth it.
'The Red Era' is for everybody. Every gay, every fluid, every black, every white.
I'm okay with being the oddball.
I've had two platinum albums. I have worked with thousands of people. But the most rewarding feeling is to see people on Twitter say, 'Do you see what Dawn and them are doing? They are number one.' It's the most rewarding feeling because of all the tears, all the bad stuff, and the people that said I couldn't do it.
I lived in the library with my grandmother as a child. I still love the smell of books; the library card is still my friend.
I really got back to my New Orleans roots - my grandfather played with Fats Domino. We had to leave after Katrina, but I feel like, spiritually, I'm back there.
A lot of 'Blackheart' was me, literally in a dark room, confessing my sins; Poe was the influence for that album. But that melancholy has a hopefulness - in every Poe story, there is always a moral at the end.
It's always interesting when you're doing things yourself - getting the lighting, getting everybody together. It's exciting.
I don't wish homelessness on anyone, especially when you come from where your parents work hard.
I watched my parents lose everything, from a house to birth certificates. We were homeless for about six months, then we stayed in Baltimore, and my parents got jobs.
I had no idea that what I thought was my low wasn't really my low. That's what a lot of people think - then life reminds them, 'No, there's lower.'
I'm not a very open person.
It doesn't bother me when I'm labeled, but it's so... limiting. It's so boxy.
I want to show that you can be just as amazing as labels and compete as a business and work as a business even though you're an artist.
