Jamila Woods

It's important to me that there's not just one story told about our city. 'LSD' is an ode to Chicago, a song for the complicated love I have for my city.

My hope is that 'Blk Girl Soldier' is a freedom song for black women today who are fighting the macro- and microaggressions of daily life in our city/country/world.

Part of what I like about living in Chicago is it's not easy. The breath of the city, the everyday challenge of it, is good. It forces you to grow and push yourself.

I really value what Closed Sessions is doing to build the Chicago music scene and am excited to partner with them for my first solo project.

I don't sound like other people. My voice isn't as loud and can't do certain things athletically.

When you're in a choir, it's about blending into how everyone else sounds.

When I was a kid, getting on Lake Shore Drive from the south side to go downtown was magical.

When I started writing poetry, it was always in very hip-hop influenced spaces: Someone would teach a Nas song side-by-side with a Gwendolyn Brooks poem, and we'd talk about the connections between those things.

For me, church was about not only religion but about community. A woman in my grandmother's church helped pay for my SAT classes when I was in high school and drove me there every week.

I hold strongly to my identity as a Chicago artist and want to do whatever I can to participate in creating a strong community here so that artists don't feel pressure to move somewhere else to succeed.

I've seen Chance and the Social Experiment build their own careers in the way that's most authentic to them.

Me and my three younger siblings, we sang together in grandma's church, and I was in the Chicago Children's Choir in high school, but I didn't think I had the voice to be a singer professionally.