'Take Me Apart' doesn't feel cohesive in a singular way but in a varied way. You can fixate on individual songs, and there are references from all over the place: Anita Baker to Bjork. I wanted to show all the facets of myself.

I'm just trying to soundtrack your real life. I'm just trying to give you a place to feel safe in all the parts of your experience.

A black woman's handbook in this industry is, 'Whoa.' The chapter on 'Don't go there.' The chapter on 'How to say that nicely,' how to express that you don't like something so that you don't lose the opportunity - which is what we're doing all day long.

I want to speak in the tradition of rhythm and blues and soul music, but also push how it's dressed and how it's delivered to the audience. And hopefully that gets embraced by as many people as possible, but the goal isn't necessarily to speak to everyone. The goal is to get it out as exact as it is in my head.

I would say Tracy Chapman was the first time I obsessed over an entire record. I knew every song; I knew the exact amount of seconds between each song. That's the level of obsession that I had.

The most rewarding thing for someone like me is for someone else to find solace through my music.

When I called 'Cut 4 Me' a mixtape, I was thinking about a few elements: One is used instrumentals. The project is more centered around introducing you to an artist; it's not meant to be seminal. It's 'Hi,' 'Hello,' a thing that you first hear.

The assumption is simply that I hit on all the things I've hit on so far by accident, that my talent is just this raw thing that pours out of me, and then white people feel like they have to come in and contain it, refine it, and bring it to the place where it can been released.

I guess the bottom line is I don't make music that is consumed en masse.

As much as we like to pretend we're just getting on stage and whatever, it's like, no, I practiced in front of the mirror my whole life.

Most of my friends, growing up, were upper-middle-class white kids, so it was a different reality at home both culturally and linguistically. It created a lot of insecurities for me, but it also did a lot of amazing things that I didn't know were happening at the time.

At the end of the day, I would like to have the farthest reach in terms of being able to communicate to as many people as possible. So it's not that I enjoy being obscure; it's that I sonically don't want to be situated here or there.

When I was little, my parents would have these gatherings, and it was a common thing for me and my cousins to have to put on, like, shows.

I'm finding out what part of punk culture or white indie culture I actually still want to hold onto - What are the values? What are the contributions that I actually like? - and it not coming from a place of desperation or wanting to be embraced or wanting approval, essentially.

As it pertains to my black womanhood, there's just a lot of ground to cover. There's a lot of stuff to say.

The act of me just being robust in the world is so radical - it's so radical for a black woman to think she's going to be a star, because it takes so much to get there. It's still a battle every day, but I feel happy because I feel like I cracked the code and figured out how to work through it. Now I want to give the map to other women.

I am your homegirl, at the end of the day, but I also feel very... outside. So if you're finding solace in feeling outside with me, then we're good to go.

I've always had this commitment to not being in one thing.

To me, the best writing points to something literal or common but is also nuanced: The moment when somebody is telling you they love you while simultaneously disappointing you. Everybody's experienced that.

I don't write lyrics. I hear the track and sing in gibberish over it, then I try and fit words into the phrasing and melody that I already have set. Everything is left to chance.

Popular music was this abstraction - an abstraction that I was relating to immensely but was ultimately far away.

I am not carefree. I'm just not. I experience an immense amount of joy, a crazy amount of joy through sadness and so much struggle. There's something problematic about 'carefree black girl.'

I'm just tryna be honest about all the things that I dig in my music. It's not just this over here, it's also that over there.

I like to try out different methods to get to good songs.

I really do like Solange, sincerely. I'm down for her, and I trust her judgment.

When I was growing up... I'm not going to say I listened to everything, but when it comes to vocals, I was really adamant about imitating all kinds of voices.

I would love to do an album of standards!

There's definitely a push and a pull to 'legitimize' electronic music live by playing the same way that a band would play.

I'm pushing back against the white, misogynistic, heterosexual establishment in the music industry. Like, literally, in all its forms.

There is this feeling among black artists that you have to be really careful. We're not inclined to talk about this stuff because, if we do, we put ourselves in a position where we're not marketable or where we can't win.

I just want to live in a world where I can tell a guy, 'This is the deal: I really want this. I really want you. But it's also not that deep.'

The goal is to blow the audience's mind.

My music sounds like one synergised thing, one message.

I think I'm taking risks and putting myself out there.

I've talked about that with friends, about what genre makes sense to choose for each record and the strategy around that... Sometimes it's more about the moment of time, and other times it's more about the sound of the song. Sometimes it's about what's going on in larger life, in politics.

We are - as artists, we are racialized through genre and called black - without being called black - through genre.

When I started making songs, some of them read as mixtape-y, and some of them read as album-y.

My first reaction to being pigeonholed or pushed into certain confines is to be like, 'No, I'm the opposite,' you know? Like, don't put me in a stereotypical black-girl category, because I'm not like that; I'm doing this thing over here.

You can never have enough reinforcements, resources for black women to thrive in the world. The topic has been addressed a million times before, but it will never end because what we're up against keeps morphing, and we have to figure out how to beat it.

I want to empower.

There are no black women geniuses that are being named in canons. I could name a bunch, but it's not part of common knowledge. It's not how the world is taught to think about black women.

I have something stupid, like, 12 credits, to graduate.

Before I collaborate, it's important that I have a conversation about what I care about before we make anything, so that it's very clear.

I would say there is a zone of R&B that hadn't been quite innovative.

It is very rare that I am just coming up with melodies off the top of my head. I usually am responding to something - it could be chains dragging on the floor - but I am usually responding to something.

It means so much to be able to share myself with the world.

My queer black women peers are the ones who make me not feel crazy. The way we act is so instinctive.

Growing up in an Ethiopian household allowed me to feel like I had an audience before I had an audience.

In Maryland, I didn't grow up around poor white people. Where I grew up, the white people were middle class or upper-middle class. It's interesting how screwed up it is in reality, because most people who receive assistance from the government are white, but not in my head or in my experience.

I know my ticket is vulnerability. Most people point to some emotional experience, some hardship, some high or low when they talk about my music... a time when they need to feel those feelings more.