My style is understated because everything I wear, I want it to have an effortless feel to it. I always want to be comfortable in my clothes and feel like myself, but I like to usually throw in some edge in there somewhere, even just with a leather jacket. But overall, always gotta keep it classy!
My first competition, I guess, singing-wise, I was six years old, and there's a video of it, too. I'm just, like, stick straight. I'm not moving at all, and I'm just singing.
It's so important to me to take care of my voice. I do a lot of vocal warms-ups right before I go on.
Gospel was the root of everything in my house, so there's a touch of that in everything that I do. If soul counts as a genre, I would also say that's the common thread throughout everything I do. There's rock and soul influence, too. The pop element comes at the very end and making the song catchy so people will remember it.
I think, for me, the goal was never really for my EPs to go mainstream. I think the intention of them was to create a little bit of buzz and to show my musicality because I wrote and produced the EPs myself. The goal was to experiment, with no rules.
I really grew my own fan base. I started posting videos on YouTube with the help of my parents.
Reggae is definitely a natural influence. Even living in Southern California, near the water, you get that reggae feel.
I feel really comfortable when it's just me and a guitar. It's special and more vulnerable to strip it down. It can be scary, but it's also empowering.
I think in 2016 I'm going to focus on performing a lot more and doing as many shows as I can. There's plans to tour more, and that's where my heart is - doing the live shows.
I started writing music when I was 15 in my bedroom, and I'd post them on MySpace, and from there it shifted to doing covers on YouTube and building my Twitter.
All my life, I was even just wanted to attend the Grammys, like, just be there, so the fact that I'm nominated for Best New Artist, it feels like a dream.
I'm a '90s kid, so I went into the entire album process wanting to incorporate little touches of that sound from hip-hop and R&B. Just enough to where you hear it subtly and then go, 'This kind of reminds me of that time.'
I would like to be somebody young people, young girls, can look up to.
I was actually signed at a very young age - I was 12 - and one thing led to another, and I ended up in a mutual split from the label. But it was probably the best thing that could have ever happened, because I was able to kind of leave the industry side of it for a minute and focus on the independent side.
Why do we even use hashtags? It's just like a sub-thought. Who clicks on hashtags? Nobody.
People will come up to me at shows and tell me that a song touched them in a completely different way than I wrote it. That's fun. Fans translating it in their own way.
I really like to rock it natural and let my hair go wild, but when I do style it, I slick all the hair over to one side with pins. It's either that or a messy bun.
Everything I write about either I have gone through or I know somebody has gone through, so it's very close to me, but sometimes it's about taking those feelings and exaggerating on them a little bit: being a bit more dramatic but still keeping them relatable.
I use this brand called Ouidad; they're great. Not Your Mother's is another one. Garnier Fructis. I use a bunch of stuff. Literally, I just throw a huge concoction of stuff in my hair after I get out of the shower, and then I diffuse it.
Nineties hip-hop was a big influence for me; it still is. I love '90s everything. And it's when I was born, too. I'm a '90s kid for sure.
