When I perform, I'm just very much just being myself.

In Denver, all we really had was pop radio, so I grew up on all that late '70s pop stuff - Billy Joel, James Taylor, Lionel Richie, Elton John, Steve Miller and Toto. Great love songs and really hooky and melodic music - I have all of that stuff in my heart.

I always loved music, but I didn't know if I could be the kind of artist that makes a difference.

That's the kind of music I want SoulBird to represent: music with intelligence and heart, music that moves people in their souls and their bodies. Music with wings.

In this era, soul is not a sound or a color: it's an intention.

It was challenging getting myself into the mindset to lose the weight. Once I got there, the weight dropped off quickly.

Everything in my music has always been emotionally and spiritually motivated... But after I started doing yoga, the place where I came from changed drastically.

Music lives in my mother - she's played in bands in Detroit and toured and did the whole thing. So I have somebody who's done it all to just talk to. And we write songs together.

I like Brandy a lot. She's a vocal prodigy.

With 'Acoustic Soul,' I saw my music as sparse. But I didn't do that because I was making a commitment to be commercial. That's what made 'Acoustic Soul' so difficult to produce. It took 2 1/2 years because I couldn't figure out what I wanted and still be commercial.

Saying things on paper that I would never, ever say, and saying things to myself, admitting things to myself, about myself and my personality, just putting it on paper, is how I deal with emotional pain.

So many people have been abused. It's not rare; it's a very common human experience, and we survive.

Nina Simone sacrificed so much to be as bold as she was about being black and about being female in an era where that could have cost her life.

'Open Door' was a world music project and bilingual. It was in Hebrew and English, and it's great. I do think it's really beautiful. But it's very emotional and very dark - in a good way.

For the first ten years of my career, I felt suffocated. People constantly stood over me while I tried to create. And in 2009, I hit rock bottom. I couldn't find myself because I was looking to be defined by the music industry or by being number one on the Billboard charts.

Your soul is between you and God.

I always pray when I write songs that my spirit guides, or whoever is with me, inspiring me, would let me speak the truth.

I'm kind of like a folk singer mixed with soul, but I feel like if you really are a lover of hip-hop music, make the beat banging as possible and then put the message in so that people get the honey with the medicine.

There's just something creatively fulfilling about watching a movie and writing a song for it because it helps you put on another pair of shoes.

I was born in love with music. My mother is a singer. Many of my aunts and uncles on my mother's side are musical. My grandparents sang and played blues piano. It's literally in my blood.

In hindsight, I feel like I made the right decision to choose production that would get played on black radio.

I know that I pray a lot, and I take time for myself.

Every once in a while, I find something that I'm interested in just because of the singing, like the Goo Goo Dolls.

Just to keep myself balanced, I do things like yoga and meditation.

I am on an album with theater icon Billy Porter called the 'Soul of Richard Rodgers.' Our duet is called 'Carefully Taught.'

I loved her music and the fact that she was a classically trained pianist and that her voice was so unique, but what made Nina Simone my hero is that I had never seen anyone in the public eye who looked anything like me at all, ever.

What I love about Stevie Wonder is the way he makes people feel. He's one of the best examples of how music can heal.

I've never said anything that I didn't want to say on a record, ever.

In my opinion, you just have to make the music. Make the music and work as hard as you can to get it out there.

Joe Sample was one of my heroes. I met him at the Curacao Jazz festival, and I fanned out like he was the Beatles!

Sound is energy, and that energy resonates with your energy. And it gives you a certain feeling.

I've been trying to arrive at a person who is self-defined and able to make my own mistakes rather than having other people make them for me.

I am really excited to be partnering with Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula. Aside from being a longtime fan of their products, they're a family business with a strong ethical foundation, and that makes us a great match.

I didn't even listen to Bob Marley until I was 17.

I think anyone who is ever on TV is a role model for somebody.

I like being a role model - people have told me that I am a role model for empowered women, but I don't see myself that way.

When it comes down to the song writing, I'm just very slow - very slow. Because the songs are about my life, so I'm doing emotional work on myself.

I'm not just making rhymes and making melodies. I'm expressing my true life force, energy.

Everybody has their own path. I got mine.

The thing that makes me feel most alive is knowing that there's something that I have to do that I'm afraid of.

I feel like I'm always gonna sing and write songs because it's me.

I wouldn't be back in my 20s for anything.

I don't really consider myself a teacher. I think - like, I have opinions like everyone else, and I just share my opinions.

One of the things that helped me to be confident is to be the kind of musician that I respect. I always liked musicians who wrote their own songs, and so I started writing my own songs.

I write about my experiences, so a lot of times, I do write about people.

At 16, I started really loving country music, and Collin Raye just had the most amazing ballads!

Even when it doesn't look good, it's always good. Even the worst thing, there's always something good that comes out of it. I've learned that.

If I were not a black artist but I was still singing, playing guitar, and singing ballads that are spiritual and cerebral, I'd be easier to market because people accept that from white female singer-songwriters faster.

I always felt like - I mean, I was told, really - I couldn't go too far with the productions because it didn't appeal to black radio. It wasn't until I decided I was going to do what I wanted to do or I was going to quit that I empowered myself. I took my power back.

I do believe in prophecy.