Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I don't wear a lot of makeup ever, even when I do interviews or when I'm on TV. I just keep it me, and I think it's important to show people I'm a regular person and regular people are beautiful, too.
People want to create something bigger for themselves, and making up drama that isn't there gives people the impression that they have haters. It's all for attention so it looks like they are important.
I just dress how I wanna dress. Not to say that I don't care about how I dress or that I'm a slob or anything like that... I just don't have to worry about the outside opinions of what people are saying.
It's so cool though when I see thirty-year-old men that are coming in to watch my shows. It's like, 'You really like my music? Like a teenage girl, you relate to it?' It just proves how much people are alike.
When I write, I like squeezing as many words as possible into each bar - I've listened to the Fugees and Lauryn Hill for as long as I can remember, so probably a big chunk of it subconsciously comes from that.
I grew up in this little city called Brampton. It's pretty suburban - there's not a lot going on. In my neighbourhood, specifically, there weren't a lot of other kids so I would just spend a lot of time inside.
I actually didn't grow up watching 'Degrassi,' but I saw the commercials and knew the characters. I didn't realize that Drake was the guy from 'Degrassi.' I had to piece it together and go, 'Oh! He's Aubrey Graham.'
I first picked up a guitar when I was ten years old; my parents surprised me with it for my tenth birthday. I started taking lessons when I was thirteen, but only for a few months, and then I just kept teaching myself.
No matter what I put out, no matter what genre - because I feel like I'm going to experiment with everything - I hope people will see that it's true to me, that it's honest, and nobody ever thinks that I'm inauthentic.
I've now learned how to do it, I can write anywhere. I'm the type of person that will get a random idea and then I'll have to write it down and then continue on it. It can be anywhere. It doesn't have to be a set place.
Other than the 'Sesame Street' soundtrack, which I was obsessed with, the first artist I really felt I'd discovered on my own was Amy Winehouse. She was the first female artist I wanted to write like and sing like and be like.
I was too shy to do any vocal lessons or go to choirs; I just didn't want to be seen doing it. It's something that I kept to myself. I started easing into it, and I started doing talent shows, and YouTube really helped with that, too.
It took me a while to really believe in myself or feel determined about it, but then once I realized that it's possible for anyone, and these people who are singers started off very normal... I realized that it was not that hard to do.
I always get criticized for my clothing because I like wearing jeans and T-shirts. There's nothing wrong with dressing sexy. It's just I don't want to be anything that I'm not. I'm not here to be a fashion icon. I am here to make songs.
The biggest critics are in the comments online. People are so judgmental of me. It's like, 'Why is she wearing this?' or 'Why isn't she wearing that?' or 'Why does she talk like that?' That's the worst because they're judging for no reason.
I'm not extremely outgoing, but I'm average, I think. When people meet me they'll say, 'Oh you're not that shy...' I never said I was! I see where they're coming from because my biggest single was about being shy at a party - I get it. But it's not 100% accurate.
It's hard to consider myself one when a lot of my fans and people who are calling me a role model are people my age and sometimes older than me. I feel like they're at the same walk of life that I'm in right now, and they can probably teach me things about life, too.
I want 'Scars to Your Beautiful' to reach different types of women. The girl I am talking about, it's me, it's you - it's every girl who has struggled with feeling not good enough. I want to talk about all the different extremes that girls go through to feel beautiful.
I was one of those weird kids who didn't really speak or smile. I remember my teachers would call home and ask if everything was fine at home because I would never smile. Then I got into this phase, from maybe fourth to eighth grade, where my personality just did a 180.
It's important to show that there's different ways of doing things. Some people like to be glamorous, and that's perfectly fine, and that's amazing. If I were that style, then I would do that. I'd wear heels every day, and I'd strut around in a dress, but that's not me.
I don't want to have one hit, one song of the summer, and then have me disappear forever. I really want my things to last, and I want my songs and my bodies of work to resonate with people. I want to hit people - at least make a dent in them. I want to make a mark somehow.
In second grade, I told a bunch of kids there was a homeless person living between the portable classrooms outside our school. It caused panic, and the principal had to announce on the P.A. system that no one was living there. I pretended I didn't know who started the rumor.
I've never been one to crave attention, which I know means that this is probably the worst career to pick. I get anxious even when people come up to me for pictures sometimes. That's the one thing that makes me hesitant about my future. But I love music too much to not do it.
When you're from an unknown place, I think it's hard for you to believe it's possible. You think you have to go to L.A. or New York to make it, but I don't think that's true. I'm glad to be an example that you can make it from where you are. All you need is talent and hard work.
I don't really think I got the full high school experience, only because when I got to high school for the first year, it was grades 9-10. We didn't have older grades. But besides that, it was normal. It was a regular public school. We didn't have much going on. It wasn't too crazy.
I think that my music is really empowering. I just want people to know - especially young people, but really everyone - that you don't have to be so caught up in what everyone else is thinking. You don't have to be the coolest, most popular person. You can just be you and be vulnerable.
I do feel pressure from the outside world a little bit just because everybody wants new music, which is really nice. It just proves that everybody likes what I'm doing. But at the same time, I feel like it's important to just chill and experience things and really make the songs true to me.
I guess people don't think that young girls or young artists have opinions, but I'm so glad that there's artists like Lorde and Raury and Kehlani because they're showing other people that young people can have an opinion and a voice and do really well with it. I'm glad I can be one of those people.
You can do anything and be a star. You can dress like however you want, and you can do whatever you want. If you wanna wear meat suits like Lady Gaga, good. She's freaking amazing! She's doing that, and she's unbelievable. I can wear T-shirts and still be great, too. So that's just what I'm proving to people.
People don't care what men wear or how they look. Unfortunately for women, the music industry is very visual and objectifying. The objectification of our bodies and using our bodies to sell things needs to change. A lot of this marketing stuff comes from men, so we definitely need more women behind the scenes.
The fact that there's people out there that care about what I'm eating for breakfast or care about a tweet that I posted in 2012 that they pulled up because they were searching on my Twitter and things like that - it's hard to understand, because it's just me, and I just think, 'What's so interesting about me?'
As a kid, my parents would always listen to a lot of Beatles, Queen, Elvis. My mom was born and raised in Italy, and my dad was born in Canada and moved back and forth between Canada and Italy, so they would also listen to all the big Italian stars like Eros Ramazzotti, Gigi D'Alessio, Tiziano Ferro, Laura Pausini.
I didn't start writing songs, honestly, until I started making my album. I was always doing poetry, but I never thought I could write songs. I discouraged myself and thought it was so hard. But starting this process and learning just what it is to be a songwriter and performer taught me that you don't have to feel discouraged about anything.
As a kid I would always be in my bedroom constantly staring at the same four pink walls in it, aspiring to do all of these things. I had big dreams, and my dreams were bigger than what my life was at the time. I didn't understand why my life wasn't more interesting, but I was so oblivious to life outside of my bedroom because I was always there. I had to go about living my dreams.