I wanted to get that Division I scholarship and play ball and go to school for free, and I was always about getting to that next step... I was always ahead of myself in some way, shape or form, and trying to envision how to get further along and closer to fulfilling that dream of being free and having creative agency, so to speak.
I was born in Niagara Falls. The high school I went to had 500 kids and the school didn't have a lot of money. The town itself was whatever. It was a good place to grow up. It was a blessing that I grew up there, because I got to find myself at a young age.
I'm from a small town - Niagara, outside of Toronto. When I was a kid, I thought it was really boring, but it ended up being a big blessing because I got to know myself at a young age.
When I first came into the business, I had to, for the sake of being able to sell myself as an artist, always be happy and jovial and smiling. I was the happy nice girl, and I am the happy nice girl, but I have my moments, too.
I feel like anything I'm doing in life, I try to stay myself and be as honest and true as I can be, you know, and be a nice person. I've always been taught to be kind to people and have an open mind about life.
There was a time in the marriage when I could no longer look at myself in a mirror, couldn't feel I was a nice person. A bad relationship can do that, can make you doubt everything good you ever felt about yourself.
I did some work on Beyonce and Nick Minaj's 'Feeling Myself.'
Anyone who knows me, knows I don't walk away from a commitment, but I had a commitment to myself. Yes, there were times Nickelodeon made it more difficult than it needed to be, but there were also times they made it easier.
I am a normal guy. I muck about; I play around with my nieces. The only thing is I need to be professional when I am out and conduct myself in a certain way. I still live a normal lifestyle.
I live half the year in Nigeria, the other half in the U.S. But home is Nigeria - it always will be. I consider myself a Nigerian who is comfortable in the world. I look at it through Nigerian eyes.
I think I'm ridiculously fortunate. I consider myself a Nigerian - that's home; my sensibility is Nigerian. But I like America, and I like that I can spend time in America.
You know, I don't think of myself as anything like a 'global citizen' or anything of the sort. I am just a Nigerian who's comfortable in other places.
I sort of consider myself a Nigerian who spends a lot of time in the U.S.
I would find myself being inspired by things that I've heard as a kid: Nigerian music or African music, some French music or some Jamaican music. When it's time for music to be made, it's almost like my ancestors just come into me and then it's them.
It's not a field, I think, for people who need to have success every day: if you can't live with a nightly sort of disaster, you should get out. I wouldn't describe myself as lacking in confidence, but I would just say that the ghosts you chase you never catch.
I am a night owl. I always have been... and I'd like to think I always will be, although surely having children will put a stop to my nightly affairs with myself.
Some nights it was a melee, literally, where I'd be standing trying to defend myself for what I was doing. People would be screaming at me to do my old act, and getting actually violent and angry at me.
The goalkeeper always starts again at nil, even when you're 2-0 down. It always starts again at scratch. It's a completely mental thing, and I keep reminding myself of it during matches.
So by the time I taught myself the bass guitar at the age of 14, my hands were already pretty nimble.
When I got with Nina Greenberg, I had been running for a few months already without a trainer. But then she gave me a program and guided me through my runs, showing me how to take care of myself and letting me know I should ice my legs and stretch - stuff I hadn't been doing.
