00:00Soul music to me is literally the art of bearing your soul.
00:06However that sounds and whatever the song is about,
00:10if you're doing that and if it's kind of expressed in a way that connects on a human level,
00:15I feel like that's what soul music is.
00:18My first memory of kind of defining my musical taste,
00:21I guess it started in my parents' record collection,
00:24and so people like Chaka Khan, Sade,
00:28and then I just used to explore more, you know,
00:30and started to discover obviously a lot more great voices within soul and R&B,
00:34and when I started to feel like it was something that I could also create,
00:39it was, you know, it was just like there was no turning back.
00:42What I do really comes from my heart, you know,
00:44and it's soul music in that sense that it's me bearing my soul.
00:48Definitely I've had like the thing of people being surprised
00:50and kind of not expecting to hear what they hear,
00:53but one of the comments I get quite regularly,
00:56I heard that song and I thought you were a black woman.
01:00I mean, that's definitely a compliment.
01:03Shaka Khan, I'd love to sing with Shaka.
01:06I'm still trying to get Maxwell in the studio, you know,
01:08but he's a little elusive.
01:10So excited to be back at Essence.
01:12First time was two years ago,
01:14the year that Prince was headlining,
01:16and it was just an amazing experience for me,
01:18you know, to kind of be in and amongst so many amazing artists
01:22and people who'd influenced me and,
01:24you know, to just to be there was fantastic.
01:28And I can't wait to debut my new music,
01:30which is about to happen.
01:32So, yeah, really excited.
01:34We'll see you next time.
01:36Bye.
01:38Bye.
