MELANIE FIONA

I love Canada, always.

I love the freedom to do whatever I want with style and not be put into a box.

Toronto is a very multicultural city, a place of immigrants, like my parents.

When you're with your family you're with them and when you're working you're doing that. I definitely try to separate the time when I'm working and when I have my personal time.

I live out of my suitcase and I'm happy to do so.

I'm a young girl with an old soul. I wanted to fuse the two together, the past and the present.

I am a bit of a hopeless romantic. I really do have a faith and a belief in love, and when I love, I love hard.

I feel like shoes are one of those things that no matter how conservative or how outrageous you get, a good pair of shoes is going to last you a lifetime.

Surround yourself with positive people.

Melanie Fiona is a singer, a songwriter, she's a super-girl. I can be silly, goofy, really chilled. She's like your cool chill girlfriend, sister-friend. I'm just like everybody else.

Canada had the good health-care system and educational system. It was a privilege for me to grow up there.

My parents leaving a third world country to a first world country and building from nothing - that's really inspiring to me and it's influenced me in a positive way.

I'm a shoe girl.

Bob Marley is one of the most recognized artists. He didn't care to be defined. People wondered, 'Is it reggae? Is it rock?' But at the end of the day they were still playing his music and that's what matters.

Older audiences are hard to win over. They're very specific in their tastes and critical of new music.

The true essence of fashion is being able to reinvent yourself with what you have.

It's nice to have some anonymity and still be low key.

The social networking sites are such good way to keep in touch with your fans, it's quick and simple and it keeps your fans interested in what you're doing.

I consider myself more of an international artist than I do a one-territory artist, which I think is a blessing.

Whitney Houston's voice was the very first voice I fell in love with. She was the voice that made me want to become a singer.

I'm a first-generation Canadian.

Canada can be tough for urban music.

Once I started performing I knew that's what I wanted to do with my life. But you have to work really hard to be a performer.

I rarely buy a shoe that is completely specific to a time and outfit. I generally tend to spend money on good shoes that can go with everything.

I'm a drugstore beauty girl, I love going to the drugstore and buying makeup.