“You need to give yourself the time to think freely. I don’t know if that is political. But sometimes things are political because you observe things that are right or that are wrong and you want to speak on them.”

To me, doing a gay pride show is one of the most fun things. My first show that paid more than $10,000 was in a gay club on New Year’s Eve in San Francisco.

Beauty is not just a white girl. It’s so many different flavors and shades.

Most people don’t have so much talent that they can become a success all their own. We all need people to help us and lift us up.

To me, I always felt like I was carrying a torch for women of any size to be themselves – it doesn’t matter whether you’re a size 2 or a 22, just be who you are.

Every woman is a queen, and we all have different things to offer.

Dreams become reality when we put our minds to it.

It’s not always easy to do the right thing. But, doing the right thing makes you strong, it builds character.

Be bold, be brave enough to be your true self.

I write pretty often. I have a home studio. Music is what I do for fun. I never get tired of it, so to take a break from [TV and movies], I would go make some music.

If my brother and I wanted money in our pockets, we had to get jobs – my first was at 15, at Burger King.

There are different flavours of sexiness.

There are so many things I’d like to do. Like becoming a parent. To me that is the next natural progression in life.

I was taught from a young age that many people would treat me as a second-class citizen because I was African-American and because I was female.

You can huff and puff. But blow me down? I doubt it kid, or you get your ass whupped.

When I was around 18, I looked in the mirror and said, ‘You’re either going to love yourself or hate yourself.’ And I decided to love myself. That changed a lot of things.

I think as far as the music industry is concerned, it’s kind of been the wild, wild West in a way with the Internet, which is not necessarily a bad thing to me.

We don’t need no culture except revolutionary culture. What we mean by that is a culture that will free you.

Only an educated and informed people will be a free people.

Real freedom must include economic security.

If I could have convinced more slaves that they were slaves, I could have freed thousands more.

If you actually do something you love it’s a lot easier and takes on a lot more purpose.

I believe in free love and that’s just how I feel.

There is absolutely no reason for being rushed along with the rush. Everybody should be free to go slow.

Freedom of the Press, if it means anything at all, means the freedom to criticize and oppose