Gabriella Wilson

“I guess 16, 17, 18, that whole period was a dark time for me. I guess it was a hormonal thing, going through all those changes as a young woman, learning who you are and being comfortable with yourself, and also, which goes along with that, boys. It was definitely an unhappy, 'Who am I?' period. 'Who am I gonna be?'”

“When you're growing up as a young woman, you develop all of these insecurities, and then there's boys and all of that stuff on top of that.”

“Black culture, to me, is so important and I identify with young black women.”

“A lot of women need to know that they don't have to conform, they don't have to take no for an answer.”

“Whether you know who I am or not, you don't really know who I am.”

“I'm so emotional when it comes to even the smallest thing.”

“People have always tried to imitate, but at the end of the day, no one can do me better than I can do me, you know?”

“I like to pair clothes or accessories that wouldn't usually go together.”

“All the gossip - I'm not about that at all. The drama.”

“I love Toronto.”

“I've been writing since I was five years old. I used to write poetry, and I loved to rhyme.”

“I was like, 'Wow, Tommy Hilfiger wants to work with little old me.' All the dots connected, we had a meeting, and everything started to come together.”

“Some people want the attention, some people want the spotlight, and that just wasn't it for me.”

“I'm just going to keep doing what I've been doing.”

“You can't avoid heartbreak, you can't avoid a lot of things. You have to go through them in order to become the person you're going to be.”

“As an artist, you're very sensitive about your art. And you feel like, 'Am I doing the right thing? Am I making the right music?'”

“Before anybody knew who I was, I was just working on what I love and having fun with it, and I'm sticking with that - because, ultimately, that's what people want to see.”

“I just love music, and that's what I want people to see and respect.”

“When I was a little bitty kid, I was listening to the stuff my parents were listening to. My mom was a huge Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige fan. My dad had a cover band that I sang with, and he loved Parliament, Prince, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, the blues, James Brown.”

“People at school knew I sang and that this was what I was gonna do, but I was pretty private and low-key.”