So now I feel that I can let my guard down, people know who I am, I can be myself, I can be more versatile, and I can wear what I want. I worked with my family really closely so I was able to get that respect in the industry. I didn’t want to be taken advantage of and burnt out in the industry. When I first was putting out music, I was like, “I don’t want to be overly sexy or do to much with the imaging or show too much skin and I want to make sure my lyrics are balanced.” Sometimes it’s isolating, but just being in the music industry that is just dominated by men, I think it means I have to be comfortable and confident in myself and not really care that people think I’m bossy and opinionated and also try and balance that energy. How do you find strength as a Black woman in a demanding industry? Actually, Estelle wrote that song and when I heard that song I just got chills and was like, “I can relate to this I want to sing this.” It was unusual for me to get to connect to someone else’s lyrics that much. As strong as I feel on some days, I’m not doing this by myself and I am sensitive. It starts as sand and it takes on different lives, but it is breakable.

I think glass has so many different forms, sometimes it comes off as something so breakable and fragile, but it’s amazingly strong.

Goapele closer to my dreams