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I wanted to be successful. I definitely didn't want to be poor.

The best thing about success was being able to buy my parents a house.

As you know, I'm a black girl out of the projects of New York City, raised in a single parent home because my parents divorced very very young... welfare and homeless at four and then again at 16 and just not having the things or the necessary tools that society would say I needed to have in order to be any kind of success in life.

I quit my job in the bank when I was 19. I took a chance. I went to Milan to study opera and singing. My father really supported me economically.

Poverty was the greatest motivating factor in my life.

What motivated me? My mother. My mother was an immigrant woman, a peasant woman, struggled all her life, worked in the garment center.

My parents were passionate about what they did, very cheap, and very focused on doing good in society.

All I wanted to do was come into my own and find out my career path and what I wanted to do with my life - but, at the same time, showing respect to my father and mother and make them proud as well.

I had a very strong desire to be successful at something.

Growing up in the ghetto is pretty hard. It's poverty; it's frustration.