Amber Liu

I wanted to tour the United States because I feel I owe it to the community that I grew up in. When I was growing up, the only people I saw on TV were Jackie Chan, Lucy Liu and Jet Li. Our representation as Asians wasn't big, but I wanted to be like Lucy Liu and then Maggie Q.

I know when I was growing up, I was always lost and just thought I was alone and that I needed to find where I belonged.

My mom was a house mom when we were growing up, and that's all I knew about her. I had a really big disconnect with her because she only spoke Chinese. Her English isn't good at all. Being a typical second-generation, you have the basic stuff, but I never had a deep conversation with her.

I haven't said this yet, but my goal for this 'Beautiful' album is not to say, 'I'm beautiful,' or, 'OK, I'm so cool.' This is, honestly, an album written for the listeners.

One of my goals always, when I write music, is that it's not only me sharing my story with the fans: it's also a reminder to myself that, 'Hey, I said this so that I need to grow from it.'

I'm all for equality.

As any human does, I have my happy times and sad times.

When I first debuted back in 2009, K-Pop was already starting to get bigger because of the Internet. And that's how I found it, because I'm not Korean.

I was terrified to go solo. It's lonely doing it by myself. But I wanted to challenge myself.

I was born and raised in West Hills. I moved to Korea when I was 15. I've been back and forth since.

I always had good skin as a little kid, but when I turned 25, everything just went south.

In a T-shirt and basketball shorts - that's just my go-to: I'm ready for a workout. I'm ready to go play basketball. I'm ready to go dance. I'm ready to go into the studio. It's my getup for anything. I can get it dirty, which is fine. I can sweat in it; it's fine. It's nostalgic because it's what I wore every day as a kid.