Jamila Woods

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

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 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.

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

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.

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'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 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.

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

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