How does it feel to be in the Fresh Fest lineup this year?
It’s major, right? It’s a major festival. I feel like no amount of stage time [can prepare you] for a show like this. It’s so well attended, and it’s so, I think it’s so anticipated by the whole city, like everybody. So, I’m honored, honestly, at the fact that my work has gotten me to a place where I could be able to be a part of the lineup. It’s going to be amazing.
I’m extremely grateful and appreciative of not only the people that I get to stand alongside on stage, but also the people in the background that we don’t get to see on stage that have put this together.
Where did you learn to sing?
I learned from a very young age how to sing at church. I grew up in a church every Sunday, Monday, Tuesday … we were there all the time. And singing in the choir at school. And eventually, you know, I started to write.
One of the first times I ever sang in front of a large group of people, I remember not even being nervous. I was, like, 5. And I just knew. They asked all the kids, ‘What do you want to do? What gift do you want to present?’ And I was like, ‘I want to sing a song.’ I just knew that’s something that I wanted to do.
What does your music sound like?
I used to want to be compared to, like, Lauryn Hill, India Arie, Erykah Badu, Jill Scott, but I think more so now I kind of want to make my own sound. When you’re listening to my catalog and all of the music that I have released, I want it to feel like you’re not listening to the same person the whole time. I want people to feel like there’s so much, so many different genres here, so many different styles of music. I think it’s partially a love for music, and partially just my mentality, not wanting to stay the same.
What does music mean to you?
I consider it as a gift. Naturally, like, if you know you have something, then you know you’re born with it. So I think that it was a gift from God. I’ve loved music since a young age, it was always a place of escape for me. So I am one of those people who say music saved my life. It’s still, to this day, my safe place.
