"My artistic manifesto exists in the world as poetry. So even though most of the things that I've don..." — Jamila Woods

I think of music as creating a space. I like to put things in that are comforting to me and are nostalgic. To me, that's what sampling does in songs; it's making deeper layers for people who know where it comes from, but also referencing another part of my history and my memory or a memory that I have.

When I started writing poetry, it was always in very hip-hop influenced spaces: Someone would teach a Nas song side-by-side with a Gwendolyn Brooks poem, and we'd talk about the connections between those things.

It was through poetry I learned just to appreciate my own voice and to not think of my voice in terms of what it needs to be able to do, but what it can do.

I really liked 'Blk Girl Art.' It's like a manifesto saying why I create, whether it's poetry or music.