I read this book when I was young. It's about a black girl growing up in Heaven, Ohio. The cover has a black girl with clouds behind her. It was the first book cover I ever saw with a girl that looked like me.

I'm nearsighted, in part, because I would read past my bedtime in the dark. I didn't want my mom to see that I was still awake.

I always loved singing because I grew up in a very musical family. My mom wasn't able to do music professionally because her parents wanted her to get a 'real job,' but she played guitar.

Naming something, putting it on record, in a lyric, feels like affirming people. Ideally, that's what politicians should want to do: to put laws or policies in place that speak to people's experiences, to make them feel heard.

I think it's important for people to know that there's no such thing as a perfect relationship, you know?

Don't focus on the negativity. Focus on the positivity and the people that want you to do well; then, do it for them and for yourself. Sometimes I do things for myself. Sometimes I do things for my family. Sometimes I do things for my friends.

My parents had a great marriage. Interestingly, it made it harder for me in relationships because I knew what a good relationship looked like.

Teaching girls to agitate over every problem implies that relationships, and people, can bend to our will.