Solange felt like she was ''throwing salt on the wounds'' when she performed 'A Seat at the Table' live.

The 31-year-old singer admits it was tough performing her new music to a live audience as she had to open up and feel vulnerable.

She said: ''I obviously set out to make ['A Seat at the Table'] during a process of healing. But I think I would not be telling the full truth if I were to say that I put this out and all of this burden and weight left my shoulders ...

''In the beginning of performing this album live, it was almost like throwing salt on the wounds - having to open up and relive that rage and that trauma or that sadness and vulnerability.

''And it was at that moment where I decided I wanted to live out my show as a conceptual piece of work - the storytelling that I wanted to convey, the landscape, the scenography, the architecture, the movement, and approach to the show as a meditation for myself.''

And the 'Cranes in the Sky' hitmaker found ''so much solace'' after coming to terms with what she was having to sing about.

She added: ''Once that happened then I was able to find so much solace and just so much comfort. Taking the gaze off of myself as a performer and putting the conversation in context of me as an artist - that's really when things started to change for me.''

Solange has now started doing her own set design and wouldn't want to ever turn back.

She told Fast Company: ''On the artist front, I've been working with a couple of other institutions on bringing my performance piece Scales [to them]. I also want to expand on design.

''For so long, I was working within these traditional channels of live performance, and when I started drawing out these ideas [for stage sets] myself and sitting down with these design houses, we weren't speaking the same language. It took me enlisting an actual architect to sit down with and view this as sculpture.''