I'm always imagining some sort of story behind the song, even the ones I haven't written. I'm actively engaging in playacting.

I cringed when I heard myself described as a Jazz singer. I've always thought of myself as a Jazz vocalist.

Being black, I'm involved in the reparations movement. It's focused toward the African-American audience. We could begin to heal.

Miles Davis was doing something inherently African, something that has to do with all forms of American music, not just jazz.

I was never interested in singing in the church or school. I was more interested in becoming a musician.

My grandmother sang, too, and she was really loud. It was this wild kind of singing. I count her among my influences.

My father had all kinds of instruments in the house that he would hide from my mother. He bought them through mail order!

Miles Davis was a master. In every phase of his career, he understood that this music was a tribute to the African muse.

Everything I do is collaborative. It's just my way. I'm really very interested in how the other musicians perceive the song.

I'm always looking for ways to develop as a Jazz artist, to find different ways of using my voice.

Here, in this quiet place we own, worlds are born.

Consider One Thing Always, We Are Just Selected".

As Ibn Arabi says: ‘Absolute existence is the source of all existence’.

In real life, one of my friends was killed in a car accident during our sophomore year.

I believe there's an emerging American majority for progressive economic change.

Virtue and merit can become their opposites if they are exacted or compelled.

I think everything moving forward will just be instinctual, like we'll know exactly which doors to walk through when they open.

It's people's own prerogative to be able to look at something and know the difference between 'this is what someone looks like with make-up on' and 'this is what they look like in real life.'

Nothing fine and noble will ever perish from the earth as long as there are hearts to remember.

Stretch the bow to the very full, and you will wish you had stopped in time.

My career has been a gradual climb. I think that's part of the reason why I've had longevity.