Jamila Woods

I'm interested in figuring out what freedom songs would sound like in 2016.

I don't sound like other people. My voice isn't as loud and can't do certain things athletically.

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.

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.

My hope is that 'Blk Girl Soldier' is a freedom song for black women today who are fighting the macro- and microaggressions of daily life in our city/country/world.

It's important to me that there's not just one story told about our city. 'LSD' is an ode to Chicago, a song for the complicated love I have for my city.

I wish that more people, especially young people, were taught about self-love at a younger age.

I read this book when I was young. It's about a black girl growing up in Heaven, Ohio. The cover has a black girl with clouds behind her. It was the first book cover I ever saw with a girl that looked like me.

For black and brown people, caring for ourselves and each other is not a neutral act. It is a necessary and radical part of the struggle to create a more just society. Our healing and survival are essential to the fight.

I like to borrow forms and quotes and use a lot of allusions, in both poetry and music.