“Summer 2013 I stumbled across a new band. It was the summer I began wearing knee-high combat boots and shopping exclusively at Hot Topic. Already, my closet brimmed with…”

“I would stare into my grandma’s bird bath, looking at the reflection of cumulus clouds before I’d swiftly scurry away when a bird would perch its booty on the edge of its oasis. Then, small chirps would draw me back in…I remained pretty fearful of birds. I think it was their ability to fly.”

“Aside from that torrid refrain, when I look back, that period was overwhelmingly quiet. Before English lived comfortably in my mouth, I existed mostly in observation—listening, reading, absorbing. I was learning the textures of this new world by watching it from the inside of myself."

“The nucleus of my love for music is found within the five minutes and forty-six seconds of the song, released a month before I would make my surprise entrance into the world.”

“Like Kelela’s songs, Martha’s cuts are filled with narratives on love…You follow their voices to the dance floor and “freedom” could be found. And, what happens when we leave the dance floor? Whose voice and body is provided the privilege to be heard, seen, and paid off the floor?”

“Because of modern consumption habits, R&B’s humanity and range has been stripped away and reduced to “moodification,” in which human curators and algorithms over-curate the music…”

“We were assembled by the math of words whether we have awareness of this construction or not. You take the time to listen, receive and dwell in this home of the language around you.”

“I'd never heard the sound of his voice, the sound of his footsteps, but somehow still I could hear him. His presence had always been deafening, like a slow, calming tempo.”

“The voice didn't come in thunder. It came in the way it always had — woven into everything I thought I'd left behind… It was in my ancestors, who had survived things I will never be asked to survive, and still found a reason to sing.”