Gabriella Wilson

As a young woman, I experienced high school and heartbreak, and the music I started to write was a little bit more poetic, and more inspired by spoken word. The real raw emotional things that sit in the back of our minds, that you were afraid to say? That's how I started to write my music. And that's how 'H.E.R. Volume One' came about.

One of the first CDs I ever bought was Alicia Keys's 'MTV Unplugged' album. That album is the one I would take home and listen to on my Walkman, in my room, before I had an iPod. I learned most of the songs on piano.

My dad and I used to play Prince, Lauryn Hill, Stevie Wonder, The Parliaments, and a lot of older funk bands while cooking breakfast in the morning.

I remember being really, really young and watching Prince and Michael Jackson concert DVDs. One of my favorites is Prince's 'Rave Un2 The Year 2000.'

People always make me uncomfortable when they ask me: 'Who's this song about?' I feel like I let you read my diary and now we have to have a conversation about it! I already let you read it, let's just leave it at that.

It took me a while to want to do interviews.

Living my truth was very hard - I felt vulnerable.

I'm huge on the dynamic of my show and the experience, not just performing songs. It's important to me to make sure that people experience every song, and feel like I'm singing directly to them. Your eyes never want to leave the stage because there's always something happening.

I represent young black women, and I'm proud of that.

Black culture, to me, is so important and I identify with young black women.

I just want to give back to the community that raised me now that I've gotten to a point where I can do that.

When I was a little bitty kid, I was listening to the stuff my parents were listening to. My mom was a huge Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige fan. My dad had a cover band that I sang with, and he loved Parliament, Prince, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, the blues, James Brown.

I went to a Buddy Guy concert when I was, like, seven years old.

I've been writing since I was five years old. I used to write poetry, and I loved to rhyme.

It's one thing to be able to sing well, but another to be an artist and find your own voice within music. And that's what the goal was for me in my teenage years. I had to find myself.

I think most women, we have intuition. We always know what we always want to find out. We always want to be wrong, and we hate when we're right at the end of the day. People say we love to be right. That's not true. We don't like to be right, because usually we know when it's the truth.

I like to pair clothes or accessories that wouldn't usually go together.

I'm a sneaker girl, but I like to make comfort fancy.

I'm really about this women empowerment thing.

Giving, making an impact on people is something I definitely got from my mother.

I was playing music since I was 6 or 7. I felt that music was a given to me.

As an artist, you're very sensitive about your art. And you feel like, 'Am I doing the right thing? Am I making the right music?'

I'm half-Filipino and Filipinos love karaoke.

I will say about my fans, from day one they've been listening and are still listening to my projects on repeat.

I'm so emotional when it comes to even the smallest thing.

My dad and I would perform around the Bay Area where I'm from in California together, and I also did talent shows growing up, I loved it.

People do things on Instagram and put on a front and try to live a life that they may not really want to live, or don't truly believe in. And that's the life that they portray. That's not the real them. We all have to be more aware of what is that's really happening inside. Are we really standing for what we believe in?

We live in an era of social media. We care more about looks, popularity and followers than about real music. And I wanted to get away from that.

I just love music, and that's what I want people to see and respect.

To live your truth and sing your truth, that defines success.

I've always been kind of a loner.

People at school knew I sang and that this was what I was gonna do, but I was pretty private and low-key.

I guess 16, 17, 18, that whole period was a dark time for me. I guess it was a hormonal thing, going through all those changes as a young woman, learning who you are and being comfortable with yourself, and also, which goes along with that, boys. It was definitely an unhappy, 'Who am I?' period. 'Who am I gonna be?'

It's scary and uncomfortable releasing music that is close to you.

I go to my mom's house and she'll make me do the dishes or clean up.

I definitely study the greats.

I'm always thinking about Prince when I make my music and how genre-less he was and just how versatile and amazing he was on the stage. I'm so inspired by him.

I really wish I could have collaborated with Prince before he passed.

Music is just in me and I didn't even realize it early on that I was going to do music.

We use social media as a platform to speak on issues that we feel passionate about and I see people debating on Twitter all the time about social injustices.

When you're growing up as a young woman, you develop all of these insecurities, and then there's boys and all of that stuff on top of that.

I wanted people to just accept the music for what it is without any judgement and being anonymous was the best way to do that.

It's not a popularity contest to me. It should always be about the music.

I have to keep doing me. I have to not look at what everybody else is doing, or what everybody else thinks should be happening right now.

It's a great thing to hear people putting me up to this standard and putting me on this pedestal and expecting greatness from me, but at the end of the day, I'm just trying to be a better me as an artist musically.

People have always tried to imitate, but at the end of the day, no one can do me better than I can do me, you know?

I learned anything can go wrong on tour, still, you have to put on the best show you can.

I write about other people's experiences from time to time.

All of my music is based off my life experiences.

I love Toronto.