“There’s the hype stuff that people love for five minutes and then there’s the stuff that changes cultures and shifts how you look at music. And then there’s that rare point where that hype stuff changes the game.”

I think it was ‘The Diary of Alicia Keys’. That was the first time album I ever bought with my own money. I had a little Discman.

In 2018, nothing is sacred. Everyone is everywhere and knows everybody. I don’t text too personal because somebody might screenshot it and share it.

I want to put my soul into the music and still be who I am when it comes to an actual conversation.

The first couple of times I went out and heard my voice or heard people listening when I wasn’t the one playing it for them, it felt good.

If I have a collection of songs for an EP or mixtape, I create the narrative afterwards; but usually with an album, I have a concept and the name first.

I got a dog and am trying to elevate. I’m working out, eating healthier, reading books. Making ‘Make it Out Alive’ is going to be a reflection of all of that.

I’d prefer for people to know that they’re going to get some substance when they listen to my music versus hearing the same ‘Oooh baby, I love you.’

People will listen to a song and expect that you just have that persona on all the time. But really, that was your one outlet that one day to get that emotion out. The only difference was you put it on a canvas that’s going to be there forever.

I recorded everywhere. I would go to different cities and do a session there for the project. I did sessions in New York and I did sessions in L.A. It was just kind of wherever I was and I felt like cutting a track.

Rapping was kind of hard. It’s so many words. When you sing you can kind of stretch the words out. I didn’t have to write as much as everybody else.

My music is often written from the perspective of an extroverted introvert.

If it feels good coming out, then I really don’t care about anything else, for real. It’s all about just having fun with it. If it feels like less work, then the project is coming out better.

If I feel like making something, if I feel like saying something on the track, that’s what I am going to do – regardless of reaction.

I used to think that there was a certain way I had to stick to when it came to R&B, but now I’m saying whatever, the same way these rappers do. I’m bringing that into R&B music.

I don’t really feel the loyalty to any particular genre. To be completely honest, I’m an R&B singer because I’m black and I sing.

I work while I’m on the move, so I’m able to book sessions in different cities.

To the oppressed with no seat on the table; dreaming of change and better days, I will pull up a chair, and light fires in your name.

In our society, marriage is not simply a governmental institution; it is a religious institution as well, today’s decision might change the former, but it cannot change the latter.

How can I be sincere if I am constantly changing my mind to conform with the shadow of what I think others expect of me?

The person who has changed his habit, he will change tomorrow, and the person who could not change their habit with him tomorrow will be what is happening already and will happen.

It is not that Covid is going to impede the progress of humanity. It is not as much a changing event as it was being predicted, according to me.

The typical conditions for the birth of a bull market are here: you have a changed country, you have a deep fall in growth and everybody is perplexed by the rise of stocks.

Before anyone else, women need to accept that neither does life stop, nor does it change for those few days in a month.

Future shock is a sickness which comes from too much change in too short a time. It’s the feeling that nothing is permanent anymore.