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People hear the soul, black influence in my voice. I grew up listening to CKLW and all the black stations like WLBS.

For the most part, I've been influenced by black singers and singers I couldn't sound like. Whenever I tried to do a dark note or a bent note, I would just sound like Hootie And The Blowfish.

People just decided I was an R&B artist because I'm black.

Until the '90s, major labels were looking for a certain look. This Sony guy told me I was 'too black, too fat, too short, and too old.' Told me to go and bleach my skin. Told me to step in the background and just stay back. I had the voice, but I didn't have the looks.

I was the only black girl at my junior high school. I had an afro, a Jamaican accent, I looked really old.

It was jarring to be berated for 'acting white' when I was placed in a predominantly black middle school in Southern California. I was also chubby, into boys who weren't into me, and tried too hard to fit into this 'blackness' I was supposed to be.

I was influenced a lot by those around me - there was a lot of singing that went on in the cotton fields.

People called me 'Iman the black model'. In my country, we're all black, so nobody called somebody else black. It was foreign to my ears.

My sound comes from my inspiration, which is people like Aretha and Jay Z and Kanye, as well as everyone from the Whitneys and Mariahs to Destiny's Child and Usher. They all inspired me growing up.