My pops passed when I was little. I didn't have a dad around to tell me certain things. I didn't have my biological mother.
I think writing and singing go together, but I treat them as two separate careers because I write for others. If I'm writing for myself, I prefer to be with the producer. And then we can vibe out and throw ideas back and forth, and I'll basically let the producer play me a bunch of beats until I vibe with one.
I hang out with the right people, my friends that I've had since the beginning. We go to the beach, take walks, paint, see our family - just normal things that people who become famous lose sight of.
You start singing by singing what you hear. So everyone, when they first start singing, they naturally are singing like whatever they're hearing, because that's the only way you learned how to sing. So when I was growing up on Lauryn Hill, when I started singing her songs, I literally trained my voice to be able to do runs.
I went from broke and homeless sleeping on couches. Couldn't even figure out what I was doing in Los Angeles. Now, I'm paying my own bills. I'm about to move my mama in with me at 19. I'm on tour now, and this is all off of one mixtape.
I think, as musicians, our music should be who we are. Sometimes it's not - it's someone else's. All heartfelt music and all honest music, it's who we are. Of course, our upbringing has everything to do with it.
