Corinne Bailey Rae
Language and poetry are endlessly fascinating. The most brilliant work can be so sparse yet so full of meaning. That's what I'm looking for in a song: imagery to describe things in ways that are perfectly concise. I'm constantly trying to find one hard, crystal thing.Collection: Poetry
Punk and jazz are the opposite ends of the same spectrum because they are both looking for freedom and they give musicians the right to take music in their own directions.Collection: Freedom
My dad, Chris, is from St Kitts. He worked in computers. I remember the first laptop when he brought it home. People from primary school came to check it out - it was huge.Collection: Computers
I love the idea of the winter rose that's sort of sleeping underneath the soil. Underneath all the snow is this plant that was growing and developing and could present itself as this beautiful flower in this time where everything else around it is very barren.
As an artist, you have to express yourself. You just can't stop being an artist.
Life is full of things that you can't predict.
Don't spend time wishing your life away, waiting for things to be perfect.
I believe that music can encourage you to move on from painful events. It helps to make a scar fade.
I recognize that my voice is kind of quirky, and I don't have a lot of range. But I use it kind of in a conversational way, like Billie Holiday, I guess.
I believe that energy can't be destroyed, it can only be changed from one form to another. There's more to life than we can conceive of.
You know, I think that nature has such a powerful message about moving from dark to light, and bitterness to sweetness.
Writing about relationships is political. The personal is political.
I read someplace that when I was signed to EMI, they reeled in the 'hit-makers.' The presumption is that 'cause you're a young girl, black, smiley, with curly hair, you can't have written the songs. It totally winds me up.
American music has become really heavily stylised and focused on production. With producers like the Neptunes and Timbaland, it's so much about the backing track rather than the song.
Americans like things that don't sound American.
I often find myself having deep and emotive conversations with people.
Every time you go on stage, you want to prove yourself because you are in front of a new audience.
Reggae is not music I know inside-out.
I was really enjoying playing 'The Sea,' but it is quite an intense and emotional record.
My whole vibe is not really fronty and aggressive and blingy.
I've written a soulful record but it's informed by my sort of indie guitar past.
I wouldn't describe the artist Theaster Gates as a mentor, but I pay attention and keep my ears open when I'm with him.
Being a musician is quite cerebral - there's a lot of sitting around.
I am engaged with the news, I vote, I write to my MP, I stand up for things that are important to me.
When Prince is into what you're doing, it's just surreal.
I'm compelled to make music.
I don't just work one way. I enjoy working with others.
When I did my rock band, I pined for a more soulful sound. I wanted music that was very melodic and blues-based.
All the changes you go through personally really affect the music you make, and my music on the one hand is personal and the other it comes from my lived experience and the interaction with the world around me.
I saw tons of young black girls who really got the message of 'Put Your Records On,' which is specifically a message for black girls about self-love and embracing your natural hair.
I don't get involved with what other people say in reviews.
I worked in a band a long time. As we got older, we became more aware of soul and jazz.
I used to plan a lot. But I've realized the vanity in that.
I think I just really, really love singing.
I find so much freedom in singing and so much expression of my self. I feel so connected to the people in the audience, and I feel spiritually connected when I'm doing it.
I love the sound of a Fender Rhodes or James Jamerson-style bass lines that are their own melody, and live drums and Moogs.
I am drawn to those sad and beautiful moments of life.
I won this poll thing in England about predictions, and it was all these journalists and reporters trying to say that I was going to be big in '06. My name was at the top of their list. I was like, are you sure you've got the right person?
I don't think, like, 'I've got to sell so many records here, or so many records there.' That's the record label's job. They've got to worry about how were doing in Kazakhstan or Germany. My job is just to write and sing.
I didn't expect my popularity to be a mainstream thing, 'cause I'd only ever been an underground artist.
It's kind of a journalistic thing to say, 'This person is the next so and so.' I think actual musicians are never really into those kinds of comparisons.
As an artist, you want to form your own identity and be your own performer.
People make assumptions about me based on my music. I've literally had people stop me in the street: 'You are so sweet. I bet you haven't had a bad thought in your whole life!' I'm like, 'Really? I hate to disappoint you!'
I don't respond well to time pressure - when you're in the studio, with the clock ticking, and the record company's waiting for you to lay a golden egg. Wherever it is my music comes from, it just doesn't show up when the pressure is on.
Being mixed race in Britain in the '80s and '90s, there just weren't loads of people who looked like me.
When you're in a relationship with someone, it's so much about tearing down the walls between you two that you sort of confuse what is you and what is them. When you lose them, you question: 'What is left of me?'
I'm really aware that I can't hide any of my feelings.
With music I feel like it's the one time when I don't have to think and I don't have to contrive anything.
Everything I do I just want to be real and honest.
My mum would take us to ballet, and we used to go as a family to Brownies. My dad used to take us to Saturday music school. My parents would never say: 'Oh, you've got to practice your violin now before tea.' We were self-motivated.