Dawn Richard

“'Armor On' explains why I needed armor in the first place. Sonically, you'll hear this battle of, 'I love you, no I don't. I love you, I hate you.' That's what you'll feel. You see the story kind of fight against itself.”

“I had always had an affinity for series in literature, and I thought it would be really cool to incorporate what I loved about books into the story of music, to pile it together.”

“I would describe my personal style as putting Twiggy and Yoko Ono together. It is hobo with no rules.”

“It doesn't bother me when I'm labeled, but it's so... limiting. It's so boxy.”

“When you see what you really are, good or bad, there is a fearlessness to understanding your purpose.”

“I had no idea that what I thought was my low wasn't really my low. That's what a lot of people think - then life reminds them, 'No, there's lower.'”

“The problem with Danity Kane is everybody wanted to play everybody's role, and when you're in a group like that, that can't survive.”

“I come from an era where lyrics were full of imagery and metaphor, and that's all I know. I think people miss that.”

“Besides music, I was all school, school, school. And softball. I played the game since I was four, and I wanted to go to the Olympics for softball. I got a full scholarship through softball.”

“Dreams rise like the sun and set like the sun: One minute, it is high and bright; the next minute, you might lose it.”

“When I was growing up, there was no one. There were very few black women in tech; there were very few black women in the fashion game. We didn't have our Grace Jones - Grace Jones was before my time. We didn't really have a lot of black women in electronic and punk who were celebrated in the same levels as, say, your big mega-superstars.”

“You have to put time into the art to do it, and you have to know that what you'll get out of it is not a financial or a fame thing. It'll just be the pleasure of being an artist. And I'm cool with that.”

“Anything that creates fear, I want to conquer it.”

“I've had two platinum albums. I have worked with thousands of people. But the most rewarding feeling is to see people on Twitter say, 'Do you see what Dawn and them are doing? They are number one.' It's the most rewarding feeling because of all the tears, all the bad stuff, and the people that said I couldn't do it.”

“I love what a women embodies. I love our bodies; I love the way we communicate with our bodies. I love the way dance creates movement. It's art in motion.”

“'The Red Era' is for everybody. Every gay, every fluid, every black, every white.”

“I wake up every day in a different headspace, so on any given day, my hairstyle will change.”

“When my dad went to college to get his master's from Loyola, he was playing Debussy and Chopin and Beethoven. But he played all that New Orleans stuff, too. I would go with my dad to gigs, pick up the piano and the speakers, and I would be like his roadie.”

“My director, Monty Marsh, is really awesome - I've been working with him for years now.”

“I'm big on showing people versatility. I'm constantly trying to push myself to break barriers and the idea that we have to stay in one lane.”