 As Erykah Badu, it has nothing to do with me, the way I look, my hair wrap, my style, it's about you and what you feel for my music. If I can make you feel like the way that people who influenced me made me feel, that's completion. |
| I have the ability to sing with emotion and feeling, but if you say I sound like Billie Holiday, that's cool. Let's look at who Billie was: she was this person, this singer, this beautiful diva who could move the audience with the slightest gesture of her hand. |
| The music business is motivated by money. Music is motivated by energy and feelings. |
| I don't read music or anything, so when I produce, I go basically by ear. |
| I have a master plan as an artist. I've always said I'm not going to be punching nobody's clock. I will work as an artist to survive in this world. |
| I love to leave the interpretation of my music up to the listener. It's fun to see what they'll say it is. |
| And I figured out that the reason I couldn't get through the day as well as I can now is because I had too many things on my mind, on my plate, you know, for one person to have. So I started to eliminate some of the things that were too heavy to carry and unnecessary. |
| Marvin Gaye is one of my favorite revolutionaries. He spoke from his heart, his mind. That's what I want to do. |
| What I work hard at doing is staying on a path of being kind and showing and proving that I'm a good person to society. That's hard. The talent, that's a gift. I just came here like that. |
| I think a lot of people have lost respect for the individual, you know, the individual, the person who doesn't conform. |
| I started performing at two or three on a tape recorder, one of those little flat recorders where you just push play and record. |
| Music and the music business are two different things. |
| I am not systematic at all when it comes to religion. I just love life. And I'm not judgmental. And I'm a vegetarian. |
| What makes me furious, not just because we're in an interview, but I don't like when writers take your words and put them somewhere else, in the wrong context in their own article about you. |
| I'm free. I just do what I want, say what I want, say how I feel, and I don't try to hurt nobody. I just try to make sure that I don't compromise my art in any kind of way, and I think people respect that. |
| I love putting the music together. It's like art. |
| But now I realize that this record business really needs me. No one else is trying to take a chance or do something different. |
| The kind of music or the kind of arrangements that I do, the kind of musicians I choose, is just what I like to hear. |
| Well, if you look at all of the cultures in America, this is a great opportunity for us to really get acquainted with the rest of the world. America is the only place you can do that, but we don't have sense enough to take advantage of that. |
| I thought the Billie Holiday comparison was beautiful. I think, Wow, what a wonderful, creative, helpful spirit. She's someone who wanted to help others by sharing her emotion. That's what I do, too, so I think that's a great comparison. |
