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My label understands that I am really attached to Malaysia, that I come home a lot.
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'Places to Go' is something that I would never normally write because I would usually be worried with what people would think about me.
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I like that I don't have to conform to the normal women-in-music-selling-sex-appeal thing.
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I want girls to know that equality exists in this world. You can do anything you want.
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Whenever I write a new song, it always happens when I come back from Europe or Egypt or something like that. It's always from travelling.
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I didn't take music seriously in the beginning. It just kind of a hobby to me. It was something that I love doing for fun.
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Lupe Fiasco is kinda cool. I like him a lot.
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Fame is definitely a monster: it can suck you in and spit you out and change you. The biggest challenge is to remain yourself regardless of what people say about you.
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The first time I heard Adam Feeney and Chester Stone Hansen's 'Vibez,' it was used in Drake's '0-100' as a sample.
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When I first started in Malaysia, having a Muslim Malay girl singing and holding a guitar was new to everyone. Even Muslims there had issues with it; they found it weird.
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I feel like fashion and music relate to each other in a lot of ways. I always had to be creative: I'm a very creative person. I always liked making stuff. Apart from music, I always liked making clothes. You're able to express yourself.
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I write songs about love because, above all, love is the most human thing we have together. Feelings are a part of us every day. You feel things every day, no matter where you are. So that's what I write about.
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I think, from the very beginning, I always knew that I needed to get out of Malaysia and do my thing somewhere else.
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The fashion world is so interesting because it's always changing, but if you know yourself really well, despite of all the changes in the fashion trends, you know how to stay true to yourself.
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For 'Chapters', I decided to let go of my insecurities, found myself some talented R&B producers, and worked with them.
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Sometimes when you're a songwriter, you kind of have this egotistic thing: you just want to write something that you love, and you don't care about if people like it or not, but personally, I want to write something that people can jive to.
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People say, 'You should let your hair out; you shouldn't be oppressed - you're not in Malaysia anymore. You should show your curves and be proud of it.' But I am proud - it's my choice to cover up my body. I'm not oppressed - I'm free.
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In Malaysia, we have a lot of divas, like Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey singers. And they were all so so talented, just very talented. For example, there's this one jazz singer, her name is Sheila Majid, and I was always singing her songs.
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I come from a jazzy, acoustic, folky background. Everything has to work with melodies; the words have to have meaning.
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I wasn't trained to be in front of a camera, so there were a lot of challenges at first. But I didn't want to be fake.
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I know how to wrap my turban a little better now. In the beginning, it was a little weird.
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The working environment in L.A. is really refreshing, really good. Because in Malaysia, it's a small country - you end up working with the same people that you like and that you know.
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I used to be affected by criticism thrown at me, and I would get really down. But I got to a point where I just decided to go for it, no matter what negativity is around you.
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I didn't expect to have music as my main thing. I always thought I was going to be a lawyer. When I graduated, I was doing really well with my music in Malaysia. I had stable income, and I had really good momentum in the music industry, so I had to make a decision whether to stop that and continue being a lawyer.