"My dad was a teacher. He has a Masters in music. He taught elementary school, and he played gigs his whole life, and we lived good."
"I'd only do a deal with a label if it allowed me to still be indie and have that indie mentality. I have to have creative control."
"My grandmother had a Ph.D in library science, so I grew up in a library, and I would appreciate those books and the smell of them and how they'd have these series, and it was cool to me. I always felt like, if I had an opportunity, I'd create an album that felt like a series."
"You have to put time into the art to do it, and you have to know that what you'll get out of it is not a financial or a fame thing. It'll just be the pleasure of being an artist. And I'm cool with that."
"People want to peg you as alternative R&B when they hear soul or see the color of your skin. It's comfortable when people see artists of color or artists that come from a different country to put that brand on us. It's just not as linear as that."
"Just as much as you need the people who love you, you need the people who doubt you - to prove them wrong."
"'Redemption' is about understanding myself and not worrying about my relationship with the industry."
"Dreams rise like the sun and set like the sun: One minute, it is high and bright; the next minute, you might lose it."
"I always treat shows as though they could belong on either platform. I always design it for the bigger stage, but I love it on the smaller stage."
"I do not have a history in set design. I have a history in art. I draw. But I learned set design when I couldn't afford to have a team and I didn't want to look like I was indie. I wanted to give fans the visual."
"Growing up, my parents were Roman Catholic - strict Catholics - from New Orleans. I understood the idea in the principle of spirituality. I noticed it in the stories that I read. The Trinity was something that was brought up consistently: the power of three. Things happened in threes, and I thought that was brilliant."
"When I get inspired, I give out free music. If you look at my track record from the beginning, that's always what I've done. I've never changed."
"I think, my entire life, I was a bit different. And I didn't think I was different; I just kinda always stuck out."
"When my dad went to college to get his master's from Loyola, he was playing Debussy and Chopin and Beethoven. But he played all that New Orleans stuff, too. I would go with my dad to gigs, pick up the piano and the speakers, and I would be like his roadie."
"Besides music, I was all school, school, school. And softball. I played the game since I was four, and I wanted to go to the Olympics for softball. I got a full scholarship through softball."
"Originally, I was set on going to Hawaii Pacific University. We visited the campus in Hawaii. I was gonna be a Rainbow Warrior. I was gonna play softball. I was gonna major in marine biology. Everything was set. Then my dad was like, 'So you're not gonna do music? If you do go to Hawaii, there's no studios there, baby girl.'"
"Music and dance is part of everything in New Orleans. So I grew up appreciating it all."
"I write for myself. It's therapy."
"I couldn't do a record without knowing I'll translate it into something visual."
"I want to get up and celebrate something - and why not celebrate being a woman?"
"I just want to be a storyteller, and I think the way to do that is by your lyrics, by your visuals, by your choreography, by your dance. It's imperative as an artist."
"'Blackheart' is purely falling into the electronic world and pushing the envelope."
"Fashion is my lover on the side, but I am married to music."
"My father's music is all I remember from my childhood."
"I would describe my personal style as putting Twiggy and Yoko Ono together. It is hobo with no rules."
