When I was a girl, I would make up songs for fun. Then I realized, after making them up, that I could remember how they went a week later - I remember that's when I thought: Maybe I'm gonna be a singer.

I would tell new artists to be themselves. Show your talents first, have your own identity, don't try to be Lady Saw. If you're coming out to be like me, once you get in, return back to yourself, that's the only way you'll be happy. Don't come in trying to be me and then disrespect me.

I'm inspired to write songs by all kinds of things. Good sex with a good man, that might inspire a song. Bad sex - that might inspire a different kind of song.

I don't hide anything about my life, I talk about everything. I talk about it - all kinds of things. I've done songs about bad experiences, a couple about growing up in the ghetto and being abused, sexually. Being raped. And I talk about it.