It's been nearly 20 years since Ciara launched her career with her debut single "Goodies," but remembering her beginnings plays into her decision to pay it forward.
In a conversation with ABC Audio, she reflected on collaborating with big stars early on and discussed how it helped her to hit the ground running.
"I think about when I was a young girl and I put out my first songs in my career, songs like 'Goodies' and ... 'One Two Step' and Missy Elliott joined me on that song; that was significant for me because she's my dream artist to work with, and that's one of the biggest songs in my career still to this day," she says.
"And you think about my friend Ludacris joined me on my song 'Oh,' I was just a baby," she continues. "No one knew me like that. And so to have that kind of love and support was tremendous."
Ciara noted that a "lot of friendships can be built in collaborations," citing her long-term friendship with Missy.
Nearly two decades later, Ciara's the veteran giving her stamp of approval to younger women in the industry. Summer Walker sings on her latest single "Better Thangs" and GloRilla's featured on the remix — a decision she made because she's also big on girl power.
"I think there's nothing better than us girls coming together, and 'Better Thangs' is a song that I want to inspire the world to go and get the better things they deserve in life," Ciara says. "And so it was just really amazing to have these incredible girls, you know, my friend Summer and then GloRilla, I'm so proud of her and her journey, to have her on the record was also really cool, too."