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.

Noah' doesn't merely get the story wrong; like all Biblical adaptations, it's bound to do that (although some aspects of the film are out and out ridiculous). It gets the morality of the story wrong, and in the process turns God into Gaia and morality into radical deep green environmentalism.

President Obama and his radical feminist enforcers have had it in for Catholic medical providers from the get-go. It's about time all people of faith fought back against this unprecedented encroachment on religious liberty. First, they came for the Catholics. Who's next?

I got to go back and perform 'God Made Girls' on 'The Voice,' which was awesome. I also got invited to sing on the 'Grand Ole Opry,' which was another unbelievable moment.

I had one request when I started doing the plays. My prayer was, 'God, let me do well enough to be able to take care of my mother.' I was able to do that 'til the day she died because of my audience.