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" Popular music was this abstraction - an abstraction that I was relating to immensely but was ultimately far away. "

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" I'm just trying to soundtrack your real life. I'm just trying to give you a place to feel safe in all the parts of your experience. "

" I want to speak in the tradition of rhythm and blues and soul music, but also push how it's dressed and how it's delivered to the audience. And hopefully that gets embraced by as many people as possible, but the goal isn't necessarily to speak to everyone. The goal is to get it out as exact as it is in my head. "

" I think I'm taking risks and putting myself out there. "

" I just want to shed light, illuminate and turn the spotlight over to all of the black people who have been being futuristic and innovative since instruments were plugged into a wall. With computers, machines, and music, black people have been contributing to that a great deal for a long time. "

" In Maryland, I didn't grow up around poor white people. Where I grew up, the white people were middle class or upper-middle class. It's interesting how screwed up it is in reality, because most people who receive assistance from the government are white, but not in my head or in my experience. "

" I want to empower. "

" How much closer can I get to the common ear, the mainstream, and how much it can still be from this other world, this other place? That's the line I keep trying to tread but have my wings extend more on both sides. "

" It means so much to be able to share myself with the world. "

" The assumption is simply that I hit on all the things I've hit on so far by accident, that my talent is just this raw thing that pours out of me, and then white people feel like they have to come in and contain it, refine it, and bring it to the place where it can been released. "

" You can never have enough reinforcements, resources for black women to thrive in the world. The topic has been addressed a million times before, but it will never end because what we're up against keeps morphing, and we have to figure out how to beat it. "

" Most of my friends, growing up, were upper-middle-class white kids, so it was a different reality at home both culturally and linguistically. It created a lot of insecurities for me, but it also did a lot of amazing things that I didn't know were happening at the time. "

" That's pretty much how every song of mine works - I start with gibberish and melody and phrasing. I speak it naturally first. And then I think about lyrics that fit into that. "

" We are - as artists, we are racialized through genre and called black - without being called black - through genre. "

" I really do like Solange, sincerely. I'm down for her, and I trust her judgment. "

" I have something stupid, like, 12 credits, to graduate. "

" I was in school studying International Studies and Sociology. I was really into what was going on in school. I was affected by the ideas and engaged as a student, but not disciplined or motivated enough to do the work. That was a fear of mine for a while, that nothing was motivating. "

" I'm quite scrutinous when it comes to who I put myself in the room with. "

" 'Take Me Apart' doesn't feel cohesive in a singular way but in a varied way. You can fixate on individual songs, and there are references from all over the place: Anita Baker to Bjork. I wanted to show all the facets of myself. "

" I think my worst enemy was myself. It's like I've been in my own way more than anybody else has been. "

" I'm interested in bridging and filling in space that hasn't already been filled, so when it comes to making music, I've just always wanted to be able to reference things that producers in the big pop major label context do, without compromising the entire sound of the record. "

" I like to try out different methods to get to good songs. "

" When I was growing up... I'm not going to say I listened to everything, but when it comes to vocals, I was really adamant about imitating all kinds of voices. "

" I want to soundtrack people's layered feelings. "

" I guess the bottom line is I don't make music that is consumed en masse. "

" I don't write lyrics. I hear the track and sing in gibberish over it, then I try and fit words into the phrasing and melody that I already have set. Everything is left to chance. "

" For those of us who make music together, I think it's important to realize that generosity on both sides is actually going to produce the biggest possibility. "

" There is this feeling among black artists that you have to be really careful. We're not inclined to talk about this stuff because, if we do, we put ourselves in a position where we're not marketable or where we can't win. "

" I'd like to change what people expect. I want to evoke something that's not nameable, for people to go, 'Huh?' "

" When I was little, my parents would have these gatherings, and it was a common thing for me and my cousins to have to put on, like, shows. "

" I know my ticket is vulnerability. Most people point to some emotional experience, some hardship, some high or low when they talk about my music... a time when they need to feel those feelings more. "