“I’ve changed the way I look a bit but not intentionally. I’ve cut my hair. I’ve got a bit of pink in it and lately I’ve become a bit monochrome, wearing a lot of black and white.”

My mum was too busy raising four of us to encourage my hopes. But I’m glad I had the upbringing I did. It made me a worrier and a thoughtful, curious person.

The only really safe thing to do is to write a diary of where you’ve been, what time you went to bed, what you ate. If I wrote honestly about everything I think it’d be a disaster. It would cause a lot of trouble.

I could always sing, from a really young age, but my voice was really weird. I used to make my mum turn up the radio every day in our house. She was well into music so I got that from her.

I feel like my figure is a challenge because I’m quite flat chested but I’ve got a booty so I’ve got to look for the right things.

I guess I’m just quite observant and I pay attention to a lot of things. Human behavior really fascinates me.

My soul is to sell. The dark is too hard to beat ’cause they’re calling me.

I’ve just become quite fixated on the idea of calmness and peacefulness somewhere, someday.

I’ve never wanted to be a star, I never wanted to be a famous person or anything like that, and I think my fans know that as well.

I can fall in love in a simple way, but I can dissect it in such an intense fashion when it ends.

The nature of how we are as human beings is that we’re much more interested in being critical rather than praising something.

How long will I love you? As long as stars are above you, And longer if I may.

You should constantly write because your writing is always evolving and progressing. It’s really important to start writing young.

Even when I’m in quite a happy state of mind, I like writing really sad songs. I think a lot of people do.

Because I’ve always been a runner I love to feel that my body is shining on the inside. I wear baggy clothes, so it’s not as though I like showing it off. I just like to know I’m great on the inside.

Something funny always happens in every show in the UK and I genuinely love touring the UK because it’s where I’m from. I just get a warm feeling when I’m home.

The smallest changes, like I stopped eating meat and I’ve been doing different kinds of exercise like Yoga and stuff like that, little changes have made me feel a bit more at peace I think.

There can be no black-white unity until there is first some black unity.

My faith has always taught me that all people deserve to be treated equally.

The Buddhist expresses it in one way, the Christian in another, but both say the same: We are all one.

Never become bitter, and in the process, be happy and just go for it.

The bus was among the first ways I realized there was a black world and a white world.

I wish to raise a Black man who will not be destroyed by, nor settle for, those corruptions called power by the white fathers who mean his destruction as surely as they mean mine.

Black holes are where God divided by zero.

Whenever someone refers to me as someone “who happens to be black,” I wonder if they realize that both my parents are black. If I had turned out to be Scandinavian or Chinese, people would have wondered what was going on.