Keri Hilson

I don't have a beef with any female artist.

Songwriting was always my 'plan B'. I didn't even know that songwriting was a job until my late teens!

To be honest with my music... for me to expect anyone to connect it has to come from a place of honesty.

I'll be honest; I'm a student of fashion. I say that because I just wear what I feel. I'm not led by name brands and things like that.

Timbaland's so wishy-washy sometimes - he'll hate a song at first and then love it, and then maybe go back to not liking it as much as something else.

We all have something about ourselves that we'd change if we could in a perfect world, be it our body image, our financial status, our relationship, whatever. I wanted to talk about how nobody's exempted from the realities of life and all those things.

I love the water; I love to swim.

My mother - who's from Iowa - owns and runs her own day-care centre, while my father's a developer. And my musical influences, I think, came from my father's side of the family.

There have been situations where the people you're around have one vision for you, and it's like trying on a jacket that doesn't fit.

I prefer men to boys. To clear it up, it's not about an older or younger thing. It's a mindset, not age. There are 18-year-old men out there and there are 40-year-old boys.

I felt that with 'In A Perfect World' I was still kind of finding myself - not just as a musician, but also in love and in life.

My grandmother would sing in the choir, while my dad - while he was in college - sang and recorded with a quartet. So yeah, it was definitely my dad's Southern side that impacted on me musically.