I wouldn't mind doing Broadway, but I am definitely trying to get a album out there first.

It's believing you can push through the exhaustion just to be able to sing after you do a cartwheel or a split.

I prefer to sing in the shower because the acoustics make you sound great, baby.

I cried when I found out I was a finalist, I kind of went limp when they called my name. I felt like my spirit jumped out of my body, and I was just flesh - it was just amazing.

The live setting is always better for me. I usually thrive at live. I feel like having a band behind me and being able to interact with the crowd helps boost my energy up.

Always stay true to yourselves.

If my life was a song the title would be 'Naima'.

I've been doing African dance all my life.

I couldn't imagine having to write a paper and have to think about what song I am going to sing.

My instinct told me that she didn't want me to understand. What she felt and lived with couldn't be shared or understood by anyone else.

Books have led some to learning and others to madness.

No, I don't have to practice that grunt. You just do it. Once you're in character, you're in character. You don't sit there purposely thinking, Well, I'll grunt here, or I'll groan there.

Don't give away to others what you have not first given away at home.

... when we are misunderstood it is always our own fault. What the reader wants most of all is to be able to grasp what we think; but you loftily refuse to comply.

I'm a working stiff, baby, just like everybody else.

If you love Senegal so much, why don't you play for them?

I've been fortunate enough to travel with Oxfam several times, and they're always so well organized, so it was a good way to show the kind of work they're doing.

Oh, this I have to see. I love it when you go for the vernacular. Jugular.

The best way to use the auto-tune is not to! And that's what I do: I do not use auto-tune!