“The beach is still a public place, and that's an amazing grace about Chicago. We have so many problems, but the water always stays. That inspires me and keeps me inspired about the city and keeps me hopeful.”

“My artistic manifesto exists in the world as poetry. So even though most of the things that I've done have been on other people's projects or could be pigeonholed in certain ways, that's not how I perceive myself.”

“It was through poetry I learned just to appreciate my own voice and to not think of my voice in terms of what it needs to be able to do, but what it can do.”

“I really liked 'Blk Girl Art.' It's like a manifesto saying why I create, whether it's poetry or music.”

“When I started writing poetry, it was always in very hip-hop influenced spaces: Someone would teach a Nas song side-by-side with a Gwendolyn Brooks poem, and we'd talk about the connections between those things.”

“I like to borrow forms and quotes and use a lot of allusions, in both poetry and music.”

“The beach is still a public place, and that's an amazing grace about Chicago. We have so many problems, but the water always stays. That inspires me and keeps me inspired about the city and keeps me hopeful.”