Growing up in an Ethiopian household allowed me to feel like I had an audience before I had an audience.

It is very rare that I am just coming up with melodies off the top of my head. I usually am responding to something - it could be chains dragging on the floor - but I am usually responding to something.

Growing up, Missy Elliot and Janet Jackson were definitely major references.

Most of my friends, growing up, were upper-middle-class white kids, so it was a different reality at home both culturally and linguistically. It created a lot of insecurities for me, but it also did a lot of amazing things that I didn't know were happening at the time.

When there is a parliamentarian crisis, the only solution in a democracy is early elections.

Like religion, politics, and family planning, cereal is not a topic to be brought up in public. It's too controversial.

We've been living with this myth that somehow government investment in research has not been critical to economic growth.

The good news, to relieve all this gloom, is that a democracy is inherently self-correcting. Here, the people are sovereign. Inept political leaders can be replaced. Foolish policies can be changed. Disastrous mistakes can be reversed.