You're just so excited that you have this record deal or this movie opportunity that you don't stand up for yourself and say, This is what I want to do.

When you're younger, you get shoved a lot. You don't really have a say-so.

You get educated by traveling.

Any decision I make is based on myself, and the only person I have to give an explanation to is God.

We are getting an education of a lifetime. We're actually out there in the real world.

Traveling is definitely something that your average 17-year-old doesn't get to do. One week we're in Japan, one week we're in Australia, one week we're back home going to football games.

You're just so excited that you have this record deal or this movie opportunity that you don't stand up for yourself and say, This is what I want to do.

A lot of people don't know me as an artist.

Anytime fashion and music go hand-in-hand and it really is an organic fit, it's amazing.

At 15, saying I wanted to do a reggae album after growing up in a snazzy house in Houston - it was kind of random.

Beyonce adores my little boy. She takes him everywhere.

Beyonce has set the tone as an aunt. I've set the tone as a mom.

Both my parents are first-generation success stories.

Colors and prints are part of my style.

Dubai's a pretty powerful place.

Every mom believes her kid's school doodles are amazing, and I'm no different.

Every teenage artist out there is mostly talking about boys, and I think there's so much more to being a teenager than just boys.

Everyone talks about how, in your 30s, all of these growing pains transition into wisdom and you feel more self-assured and confident, but I think I had a bit of a jump-start on that at 27.

Fashion is a strange world sometimes. Amazing, but strange.

For me, I always have looked at 'indie' as a term of 'independence.' Never associated a sonic gesture with that in the same way that pop music has always meant 'popular' to me; you know, it didn't define a sound.

From a very early age, I decided that I wanted to be able to do my music but still be able to live a normal life.

I actually love my natural hair when it's in a twist out and it's been slept on for five days and revived by the steam of the shower.

I can tell you what I really love: when I run into people on the street that tell me they have connected with my music.

I can't take any credit for people dressing like me, you know?

I don't ever claim to be a hip-hop head.

I don't feel like I owe anybody other than my child and my family anything.

I feel like I was 30 when I was 17, and I decided to get married and have a baby.

I felt like when I took my weave out, I wasn't pretty, I wasn't noticeable.

I grew up seeing my sister in the studio. I would go to recording sessions and take notes.

I have a father who was the first black student at his junior high and high school and had to do a lot to get to that point.

I have a lot of guy-like quintessential relationship qualities that I have had to work on.

I have a mother who never took no for an answer when it came to her creative pursuits. She started a hair salon in her spare bedroom and four years later had 30 employees.

I have always had tremendous respect for my sister as an artist, as a woman, and now as a mother.

I have been writing songs since I was 9 years old, so writing has and always will be my first love and passion.

I have more to offer than music that is automatically dance.

I love hip-hop. I have gone through many difference phases in my love affair with hip-hop.

I never borrowed clothes from Beyonce when we were growing up. But now my style is a little more tame and hers is a little more adventurous.

I really enjoy my privacy and being able to walk my son to school every morning and pick him up every afternoon.

I really feel like because I had my son so young, I didn't want everyone's help. I think people felt entitled to give advice, so I'm always very sensitive to moms and letting them feel their way out.

I really fell in love with dance. By the time I was seven, I had dance class six times a week. I was obsessed.

I really wanted people just to get to know Solange on my first album, just to establish Solange's sound, just to establish Solange's personality.

I stand for people who are firm in their journey.

I still stand behind the stuff I did early on, but I was on a record label, and I didn't have a lot of creative control. Another side of that is just being young and having bad taste. There was plenty of that, too.

I think all artists have a different story to tell, and no story is the same.

I think it's really important for every mother to find their own way.

I think many people, especially from other cultures, just don't understand the role hair plays in black women's lives.

I think that some people get wrapped up in their own egos. They need to see certain album sales and certain monuments.

I try to transition my energy into just having fun.

I was diagnosed with ADHD twice. I didn't believe the first doctor who told me, and I had a whole theory that ADHD was just something they invented to make you pay for medicine, but then the second doctor told me I had it.