"I loved the lyric in 'Angel of Mine', and I loved how simple and poignant it was. Eternal was actually my first concert I went to – I just remember learning all these ballads of theirs. I was completely Eternal-obsessed from eight to 12! Maybe it was that they had elements of gospel in their music, and it was still in the pop scene. ""There weren’t many black women on the TV when I was growing up – there were maybe one or two, not people I could look up to and say, ‘Oh, that’s me, that’s who represents me. I have a chance of being on TV one day, and I could be a singer.’ ""When Eternal came along, my mind was blown on so many levels. I thought they were so beautiful, and they had so many hairstyles that I thought were amazing. Then, on top of that, they could truly sing ­ – they’d come from the church. Instead of always looking at American singers, they gave me a British option – something more relatable and close to home. ""Now, there’s so much [black British media] coming out – the actress Zawe Ashton has just released a book, and it was so amazing to see her take account of her [experiences]. There’ve never been any people on TV that show any products for her hair, just this dream that’s sold that you’re going to have this amazing glossy hair! I felt so touched by that chapter, ‘cause it just reminded me of myself as a kid. You forget once you’re an adult, and you get to move somewhere like London and have access to all of these things. As a kid it can feel very lonely and you feel very different. I feel very grateful for the progress we’ve made as a country, to prevent that feeling as much as possible."" ""I try my best to take on that responsibility, though thankfully I think there’s so many more people of colour on TV – including black women. The culture has so much more of a voice from when I was growing up, and I think that’s the beautiful thing about social media as well: you can see yourself in so many places, and you can choose where you look. When I’m on TV, though, I definitely think about that. I think about me as a kid, and what that would have meant to me. I’m proud of stepping out there and doing my best to represent in the best way possible. I feel very grateful to have had that opportunity. It’s so important for children’s self-esteem and sense of belonging."

"Temple, Texas is very religious. A lot of churches and fast food restaurants. Football is really big in the city. And around 15, I was starting to realize that this type of environment didn’t feel good to me. By then I was into new wave music. There were cultural dividing lines: Metalheads had a thing, country western people had a thing, and the popular kids might have been more into pop-rock. But if you were into Art of Noise, New Order, the Cure, and Depeche Mode, it was a little weird. I had a lot of friends on the soccer team who thought I was queer. But there was a group of people in my high school who knew about these bands. We all dressed a little bit funny and we would catch hell for it. There were fights for sure. If you went to the mall or a party, there was always a chance that someone was going to want to fuck with you. I got in a fight in a classroom when a guy made fun of my Frankie Goes to Hollywood shirt. I took that very personally and knocked him on his ass. And I got sent to the principal for that, and I had to bend over his desk, and he swatted me. A lot of cowboys would call me and my friends “queer bitches.” So we adopted it and started calling each other that. It took some sting out of it. One time, this guy called my friend a “queer bitch,” and my friend licked his hand and wiped it on a cowboy’s truck and said, “Yeah, that’s right—and I got those AIDS.” The cowboy flipped out and drove off. Parade by Prince came out right when I was 15, and I was obsessed with him. I got that album the day it was released. The single “Kiss” had come out before, and the very first time I heard it I was like, “How could there be a better single than this?” It’s just undeniable. That song became what a single was to me—something stripped down, so you could focus on a few key elements that were just perfect. Prince was just the coolest, most creative thing happening. And he could fucking dance. I always thought the coolest job would be to make records, but for a long time I didn’t really think about how I would go about that. I just thought, “Something will happen.” And then I got wise and learned how to play an instrument. When I was 16, a girl I had a crush on left for college, and I borrowed a friend’s acoustic guitar and taught myself to play it as I was recovering/suffering from my first real breakup. I was pretty devastated. I would come home from school every day and just be in my room playing guitar and thinking about her, writing letters, listening to records."