Music should be your escape.
When you are creating to the magnitude that I try to create, your brain is like a computer, and you need to refresh.
I was very disturbed to find that a few people were angry at my weight loss.
I feel like, O.K., if I can make it as a singer, then let me try rapping. If I can make it as a rapper, then let me try writing. All right? If I make it as a rap singer and writer, then why not try to produce? I don't feel limited in any way.
A lot of people don't know a lot of records that I've written or produced, so that's a highlight for me as a woman.
Rule number one in negotiating anything with Missy is never try and run me over. Never push me, because I am a very strong woman. I'm nice, but I'm very strong. When it gets down gritty, I can get grittier. Never, ever underestimate me.
Women are not always taken as seriously as we should be, so sometimes we have to put our foot down.
I want kids of this generation to see that everything is cool, that there's some kind of unity in hip-hop. We all found something that's really important to us, and music is all we've really got.
I don't want to be oh-so-brag-about-it, but 'The Rain' is hot.
I remember having mice in the house and my father taking some newspaper and beating me because mice was running on me while I was asleep.
I'd stand on the side of the road when I was just a little girl singing on trash cans. People would roll down their windows saying, 'Isn't she cute'. I had a vivid imagination. I always pretended it was some big stage.
I think it's being innovative and very creative to stay away from flat-out sampling somebody else's record. To me, that doesn't show too much of your creative side unless you take a little piece and add it, almost like spice on a chicken.
I got more shy as I got older and realized people could be laughing at me or judging me.
My mother helped me to be who I am: to have strength and not to let people run all over me and yet to be humble; to realise that all of this that I have today could be gone.
I'm blessed to be living this dream of writing and singing, but that's not the real dream I had. The real dream was to make enough money to take care of all the pain and suffering that my mother has been through.
Now everybody's sampling.
If you believe a black cat is bad luck, people think you're crazy, but plenty of times, if I see a black cat down my street, I turn around and go the other way. Even if I'm late. I'll be late for the airport and be in a limo, and if I see a black cat, I'll be like, 'Sir, you have to turn around and go down the next street.'
If you got talent, you just have to do you.
I most definitely want kids, but I'll probably adopt kids.
I felt like, 'How do I fit in?' But then I never fit in. The whole time, I've never fit in.
