“I feel like any way you can get the message to resonate, I’m all for 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.

If you can look in the mirror and say I love myself, that’s going to affect your interactions with people who look like you.

I’ve always felt like I was observing everything, like I’m just looking out of the window, peeping how everybody is living and just penning about it, so I made the album about that concept.

How lonely it feels to be next to you.

I always wanted to feel it all. From the chaos of a thunderstorm to the touch of the wind. Both adrenaline and calm, fear and bravery.

Escape from the known to get to know yourself, converse with strangers to understand yourself, travel far from noise to find yourself, and listen to your silence to feel yourself. Because being away from everything pushes you to look inside, find your peace and live awake.

It’s kind of beautiful, isn’t it? that we get to feel the passion in this world, about anything.

Walls and brick have never felt like home, the way your gentle bones do.

You feel like the moonlight, mysteriously dark its blinding.

This is all that’s left carry on and try not to feel so much.

As I feel your heart shatter like sand through my helpless fingers I envision ripples through the tar of your blood.