I don't dress to impress; I've never been that person.
Little Simz
The whole point of an album is to understand the artist and enjoy the music - it's supposed to make you want to go to a concert to see them in the flesh and get the album on vinyl and be a part of everything. That's what I'm about.
I just write about how I'm feeling at the time. If I feel like being cheeky and a bit straight up and a bit aggressive, you'll hear that in my music. If I feel like being very vulnerable and opening up about something personal, you'll hear that, too.
My mom raised me to be a strong person.
I'm not a person who opens up to people, and I feel like music is my way of doing that.
I like to refer to myself as king sometimes, not as queen. That's a conscious decision, because I feel like women are just equally as powerful.
I have a good family. I have good friends. I have people that actually care about my wellbeing as opposed to just work and just need me for work or whatever. Like, people that genuinely look out for me and my health, knowing how much work I put in.
I'm a rapper and, obviously, hip hop rap is my main thing. But I also like to dive into different genres and kind of be a bit more experimental and open myself up a bit, whether that's taking influence from jazz or soul or electronic.
I enjoy albums, not a song here and there. The recordings I like have been a soundtrack to a universe.
I want to be ambassador-like. I want to, you know, set examples, especially as a young black female. That, I think, is important, and I just want to be a bit of an example, you know.
I'm aware that as much as people like hearing and listening to my music, it's also very therapeutic for me to be able to express myself some way - how I'm feeling, how I'm thinking, and just saying what's in my heart and on my mind. I need to do that to maintain my sanity.
When you feel like a musician you listen to is like you, then they don't feel so far away, and whatever you want to get to isn't so far away.
I like it when people have good flow, but I also like it when people actually say stuff. Because sometimes that's a very good distraction, like, to have impeccable flow, but you're saying a lot without saying anything.
I've always loved the English language. I just like words, you know?
Dance was something I'd just done at my youth club, and I used to teach dance when I was 14 to 19, 20 years old. I had my own dance group, and then I got more into the acting stuff, and I started doing things for TV. And then I put that on pause, because I really wanted to focus on my real passion, which is music.
I've experienced racism and run-ins with the law, and it's a real thing, and it happens where I grew up. It's something that not a lot of people want to talk about. I feel like I have a duty, and I wouldn't be honest or true to myself if I didn't speak about it.
I just always want to be as transparent as possible.
I believe in equality: guys have rights, women have rights. It should be the same with race, or class, or whatever. I just like balance.
As cliched as it sounds, music is my only form of expression. So I have to be honest with myself, and with that comes being vulnerable.
I don't get fazed by things easily. I don't really care about much; I'm just not interested in a lot. I'm just interested in the well being of my close ones, my music, the message I'm portraying, how my efforts are contributing to society.
I get 'female Kendrick' quite a lot. I'm definitely not complaining. At the same time, I want to be the female Simz. I just want to be me.
The very first song I ever wrote was called 'I See Between The Trees,' when I was 9. It was really bad.
I haven't knocked all the doors I need to knock down, but I can see it happening more and more. It will just take more perseverance and work.
I'm not desperate to sign, like, a record deal. I'm very hungry, but I'm just not desperate for it.
I'm not easily satisfied with things. I always want to do better. I always want to improve. I always want to grow.
I just wanted to kind of break down those gender stereotypes and just say everyone's equal, everyone's their own person, everyone's their own individual.
Singles are for people that want to chart - I'm measuring my success by how well I connect with people.
My sisters and my mum taught me how to be a woman: the way they carry themselves, the way they talk to people, the way they know how to put their foot down. They're not having any nonsense from no one. I can see traces of that in me.
Just because I'm British and I represent London to the core, that doesn't necessarily mean I have to stay there.
I change my mind quite a lot about things, which isn't always a good thing.
I struggled with working with producers because no one openly wanted to give me a chance to rap on their beats. That's just honest talk. No one really wanted to take that risk.
I'm the youngest of four. I have two older sisters and an older brother and was raised by a single mother. Basically, my household was just full of life. Everything was lit all the time.
I've worked really, really hard on my lyricism.
I realised that you have to be honest. When you're being open, that's when people connect with you. You just have to be yourself.
I'm an artist. I'm a musician. I'm not someone you can put in a box.
I've always been the kid who's known what they wanted to do.
I'm not an 'out there' person if it's not on stage or if I'm not around people I'm most comfortable with.
I'm just a bit of a dreamer, and I get really in my thoughts. I get so deep with myself at times it's almost very scary.
Taking on different characters and seeing things through the eyes of different people is interesting to me. When I look at what people are going through in life, I try to understand their story.
I chose to continue independent because, at the time I was being offered deals, it wasn't fitting into what I'd imagined. I decided to take a gamble on myself and see what happens.
In real life, I'm not the center of attention; I'm in the back, and I listen. So when it comes to writing, I just let it all out.
I'll leave my house if I need to. Otherwise I'm super comfortable in my own space, in my own company.
Sometimes I look at music as like movies. And so I feel like you can have your comedies, and you can have your dramas, and you can have your romances or whatever.
I was always just an ambitious kid from early. I always knew that I had a purpose and I was destined for something big, great.
When I write, I normally write anywhere that I can feel at peace, so if it's in my bedroom, if it's at the park, if it's by a lake somewhere, wherever I feel calm is where I like to write.
Music is like therapy, you know? It's my escape. It's my way for me to express my feelings and my thoughts.
I did a show in Germany, and some kid - he was disabled - he was actually in a wheelchair, and he came out to my show, and he couldn't get across to me what he was trying to say, and you could see that he was frustrated because he couldn't fully express himself, and I just felt like, 'Wow, he's just really passionate about me.'
I never knew listening to a song could give you goose bumps and make you cry until I listened to Lauryn Hill.
I could probably say one thing that I'm excited about is I definitely wanna be an entrepreneur and be a humanitarian and that stuff.
