MILCK

"The rhetoric [during the 2016 presidential election] that was used to describe women really enraged me, and just kind of brought me back to those feelings of when I was younger. I was told I needed to "sit properly," and I need to "speak less" and "smile more" and "lose weight" and just be this perfect little girl."

"When I first released the song [Quiet], I put on my site like, "I'm a survivor of abuse and anorexia and this is my song in response to it." And so when the song went viral, it became "the anti-Trump song," it was like a really political thing. And I'm so glad I stuck to the truth...I was like I'm not going to try to please others and say, oh yeah, this is not political. I just stuck with what it really was, my truth."

"I was put on a diet when I was 10. My mother said that women with smaller mouths are attractive, so keep my mouth small, don't talk or laugh so loud. I was taught to observe and listen. I burnt time burning calories when I could have been thinking about other things."

"For me to deal with my own anxieties about it and my friends' anxieties, I can create art. That's how I feel better about things... ["Quiet"] was just a way of giving people some space to feel love and hope in this time of fear mongering."

"[It is] so important for women of color to have a voice, because we have been living in a paradigm where women of color, and men of color, and all genders in-between color — our voices have not been as quote-unquote "valuable." That is a problem because that creates a sense of not belonging, and invisibility. I felt so voiceless, and like I didn't matter. Like I was an inconvenience of space because I didn't look like the woman in the magazine or I didn't have the same upbringing as the people I was watching on television. But now that women of color are rising...a lot of women of color are bearing a lot of responsibility of healing their cultures, and there's a way that women are able to empathize deeply, and they are able to express things that can maybe help the mainstream culture understand. Because I think the more we tell different types of stories, the more tolerance there will be."

"The message that really pisses me off is like, "Well, women in the Middle East are getting their genitalia cut, so you should just shut up." That is completely wrong. The point is we're not all truly free until we're all free, and the women who have mouthpieces need to speak up for the women in other places, and for men too."