People think I'm girlish and flippant, but I was an honours student. I was voted Girl Most Likely To Succeed at North Mesquite High in Texas. My best subject was science. I won a scholarship.
Sometimes you do have to bank on yourself. You do have to believe in your ideas enough to really get out there and fight for it despite what people think of some young kids from the hood.
That's the thing: I'm not opposed to working with people. I'm just not one of these people that feels the need to hop around the industry and get this guy's beat and get this guy's hook.
It's fun to do a comedy and hook people in and then hoodwink them into watching a serious movie. I like to lead in with the comedy and then hit them over the head with a drama.
I'm still a student of fashion, but I like hooking up with the people that really know how to make cool clothes.
I was sick of waiting for people to jump on hooks for songs I produced. So I tried singing myself, and I haven't looked back.
Yes, I backed the hula hoop. And I had a lot of other people come to me with ideas that turned out well.
I don't want to jump through hoops for people.
I always make this joke that I know you were expecting to see the big skirts and the hoops. But that was a long time ago. Artists aren't always seen as real people. If you start out as a teenager, sometimes people want to keep you locked as that. But I'm a woman now.
You get lots of people, especially where I live, who go in to a butcher and insist on organic beef - even when the butcher has better-tasting stuff from a farm that's been producing wonderful meat for 100 years but hasn't jumped through the hoops to get organic certification.
I'm not gonna worry about what people think about me. I'm too busy. I don't give a hoot.
People can be a hoot on the set, but if they're not good to work with, that tires very quickly.
If the people of New Zealand want to be part of our world, I believe they should hop off their islands, and push 'em closer.
For instance, one big issue in hip hop is the gay thing. It's 2013, and it's a shame that, to this day, that topic still gets people all excited. It's crazy. And it makes me upset that this topic even matters when it comes to hip hop, because it makes it seem like everybody in hip hop is small-minded or stupid - and that's not the case.
I don't know what can be so dangerous about giving people hope.
Hope and change? We're not doing that anymore. They're doing attack and blame. And so, I just think people are going to see through this. They want real leadership. They want us to get this country on the right track.
Seeing Michelle Obama's bright color choices, and how she made people smile and reinforced Obama's platforms of hope and change, was inspiring.
I dug deep, and I found that there were people who voted for Obama and then voted for Trump - because they saw what they believed was going to be hope and change, and under Obama, their particular lives did not change.
Jesus did not only serve the needs of the people, but truly hoped that the people and Jesus would be one.
People want to feel hopeful.
