"I like the way she (Wiyaala) is doing her things because she has been herself and she only has to improve on her music. But her concept and the way she portrays herself is clear indication that she is on the right path."

"If Wiyaala came from Funsi and has succeeded, then me too, I can make it."

"That is why in my opinion I think you would have to understand [the language in] rap music to enjoy it. Because rap is very similar to talking. If you are a rapper and you went to certain places and they don’t understand what you are rapping about because you are talking to them in a much faster pace."

"Every parent must teach their child their local dialect, if you don't do that, it's very embarrassing and when you go home they will be making fun of you... it is one thing you have to learn 'compulsory by force'."

"I will be as popular as anything in the North but because it’s (Ghana Music Awards) an Accra-based program and most of the radio stations are Accra-based, it is normal that they only hear Accra songs. Most of the DJs don’t understand our songs and a lot of people are not willing to understand our songs."

"All my life, I have dreamt one day I would climb international stages and showcase my talents on behalf of Ghanaians to the world. I say to all Africans, in whatever field you have talent, dream big and go out and live that dream. We can and will change perceptions about Africa."

"If you’re authentic, artificial intelligence can’t kill your career."

"You need not copy people blindly, else you will find yourself wanting."

"I am a religious person but marrying a man of God won’t work for me. I do secular music and a man of God wouldn’t allow his wife to be doing that. I will rather marry a free thinker so that we manage, particularly someone who is not too much into church."

"I can do any kind or style of music I want...Reggae, Ragga, Ballad, African, Afro pop, even Pure pop. As an African, I still have my African thing and I don’t want to lose that because I just believe from day one that would make me stand out quick and I can never let that go."

"I decided to let people know the real Wiyaala. Rock My Body happened because I was trying to join what was trending. That was because I just allowed myself to be influenced by some friends who said 'oh do this because it is trending. It is going to make you [popular]. [So, I said] let's get it [done]'. Deep down I'm not sure."

"It’s true that my music is not always genre specific, but I always see it as Afro-centric. I will be releasing an album of my own songs later this year (2016) and I will be singing in my local languages of Sissala and Wale as well as English. Some of the songs will sound traditional and local to where I grew up, whilst others will be more mainstream influenced."

"I don’t go to church because the churches around where I stay currently make too much noise which doesn’t invite me to worship with them. I believe we go to church to worship God, sing and pray but what goes on in my area is beyond measure."

"When I was growing up, girls had no say. Your only use is to be married off for your bride price. I saw many girls taken out of the classroom and handed out to men - usually older men."

"When I put my nipples on the frontline, I learnt they fight harder than any bazookas. Men don't know how to deal with that."

"Men with guns can't shoot at nipples."

"I use nudity because it's a weapon of the weak and the poor. The cost to pay is called shame, but I think I'm not ashamed of my body. It's a beautiful big mama body, and I am glad to deploy it for war."

"The ultimate prize in the fight for freedom for my country is death. Many have been murdered. Many have disappeared and we don't know where they are. So the ultimate prize is death."

"I also get a lot of motivation from my children because if I didn't have children, I would not need to change the world."

"Motherhood is important for me because everything I do is about creating a better legacy for my children."

"For many women, there is a great cost to pay, to challenge the status quo, because they benefit from it. Their children benefit from it. Doing the sort of activism that I do, threatens to take away from one’s status, or privilege, or wealth, or whatever it is they benefit from."

"I am aching for the world I live in to become a better place for my children."

"The third layer of participation for me are women who become enablers. They are not working with, but right from the word, ‘go’, they enter politics to enable those who are oppressed, suppressed, and abused."

"I have been a victim of bad legislation and I want to change it. I want to make legislation that's for the people."

"These women are working, no matter where they are placed within politics. They entered political participation with the heart of the masses, the heart of the people, with the will to work against oppression."

"A lot of what I do is really related to my position in the world as a woman for whom a lot of things don't come easy. Public health services don't work, the education doesn't work for my children, we struggle a lot and that's why I do what I do."

"I learnt that politics is a dish I love to eat… No one is going to make the world what I want to make it to be, unless I do it myself."

"I don't get inspired by high and mighty women, it's everyday women. It's grandmothers, stepmothers, second wives, all swearing at their men."

"When I die, I hope my children will be proud of me as a woman who at least tried to change things, instead of just waiting for the dictator to die."

"I think it is very liberating to embrace the many forms of motherhood in all its diversity. We must not be trapped by homogenous ideas of motherhood"

"I wear lipstick, I speak like an academic, I take off my bra… and this is usually not what politicians look like."

"I fled to get my voice back. I fled to get my mind back. I fled to get my freedom back."

"In a way, motherhood keeps me very grounded."

"Now, I am sure the poor woman in her grave… is shocked every time I perform my own version of womanhood and femininity"

"I feed my children with takeout, once in a while, and sometimes we even buy street food. But ‘a good woman’ doesn’t do that, for example. These stereotypes trap us, and they make us feel like failures if we cannot meet these very high standards."

"I encourage emerging writers to practice writing daily if this is possible. Writing is a craft that gets better with practice. It is impossible to write a perfect script, and thus while editing and revision make finished products better, it is necessary to let go of revised drafts by submitting them to potential publishers."

"I think if I weren’t a mother, I probably wouldn’t do at least ¾ of the activism I’ve done."

"That is another form of women’s participation in politics: that they may come and sit at the table, using whatever means, but when they get to the table, they forget the core values of women empowerment, feminist agendas, and they participate with those who oppress us through models of patriarchy and misogyny that must be combated."

"Double standards demand that feminine respectability bars women from articulating, writing, or deploying words, concepts, and ideas deemed to be taboo subjects."

"Good girls and respectable women are trained to avoid taboo topics and “bad words” particularly in their public articulations."

"In fact, as expressed in one of my poems written in prison, I wear my prison sentence for poetry as a badge of honor."

"Using taboo topics to poetically break silences surrounding government failures and violations of human rights is unavoidably loud. Whoever hears or reads the poems in which I deploy taboo topics stops, stands still, and thinks for a while about the issues being raised. It is effective!"

"Not only is an educated Ugandan woman expected to respectfully serve and sustain the status quo, but her methods of resistance are also expected to be polished, refined, respectable, and temperate—not abrasive, rude, and hard-hitting. I deliberately defy all these expectations."

"Codes of politeness demand that colonized, dominated, and subjugated peoples do not talk back to their captors, colonizers or oppressors. Politeness blunts the tongue of criticism, ridicule, satire or irony. On the other hand, radical rudeness breaks down the doors to the arsenal of verbal, literary, and linguistic devices available to launch a counterattack against corrupt militant brutes in government who use bullets, prison sentences, and mass graves to silence their opponents."

"But do women have agency to enter politics on their own? Or must we be beholden forever to male patriarchs, and misogynistic dictators, to whom we are answerable for our political participation?"

"Custody and punishment for writing freed me of the fear I previously held of being imprisoned. Physical and emotional torture during my two terms in prison radicalized me in unexpected ways."

"The transgressive reversal of my role as an elite academic who chooses to write for (sexual and gender) minorities, poor people, and the political opposition party members further enhances the shock element within my audacity."

"My multiple identities empower me to fashion my writing into an effective weapon fighting against injustices meted out by holders of abusive power onto underprivileged groups in society."

"In my experience, there is much greater currency and power in my deployment of irreverent idioms of satire, mockery, and ridicule of oppressive power."

"Guys, don't let the internet rush you oooooo!!!!! Life is not a competition!!! Life is working for you in your own time zone. You're not too late or too early."