Erykah Badu
I started performing at two or three on a tape recorder, one of those little flat recorders where you just push play and record.
I'll dabble here and there in different forms of the art, but the label has me locked down like a slave so, of course, I'll be doing albums during this time.
When you're in a relationship you want it to work. My parents did, I did. But we are not taught how to make it work.
I'm a performance artist first; I'm a recording artist second.
I've had two children. I've had three boyfriends. I've had a lot of things happen that can change your opinions and values and philosophies.
I can be Erykah the human being more than the celebrity.
I love being an entertainer - not really fond of being a celebrity.
I don't have one song that sounds like another one in my entire catalog.
I don't have any particular thing I do ritualistically. I do the same thing every day. I get up. Drink a lot of water. Have a wheatgrass shot. Drink some green juice. Eat as healthy as I can.
Be you. Make sure you're saying something when you're saying something. It's important to sound like you, to feel like you, to be like you. Be you.Collection: Important
I'm only in competition with my last level.Collection: Adventure
Peace and Blessings manifest with every lesson learned. If your knowledge were your wealth then it would be well earned.Collection: Blessing
Following your heart also means eliminating the things that no longer evolve you.Collection: Heart
The light always shows on the outside if you are striving to be good on the inside.Collection: Light
I'm a recovering undercover over-lover.Collection: Lovers
I live in a queendom, ruled by a womb-iverse.Collection: Womb
If you invite negativity in, you have to feed it and hang out with it. Best not to invite it in.Collection: Negativity
I think people who vibrate at the same frequency, vibrate toward each other. They call it - in science - sympathetic vibrations.Collection: Thinking
I create my own calm and I keep my balance, because I know that it's not really me, by myself... The Creator always gives me the energy.Collection: Giving
I know that I want to concentrate more on my inside-pretty than my outside-pretty, because thats gonna go away. But if your inside is beautiful, it never wears away. The light always shows on the outside if you are striving to be good inside.Collection: Beautiful
I strongly believe that the more positive my vibration is, the clearer my message will be. I keep my negative thoughts from infiltrating my pathway and my dreams. Other people's thoughts are none of my business.Collection: Dream
They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another.Collection: Hate
Better think while it's still legal.Collection: Thinking
Art is the absence of fear.Collection: Art
Don't let anybody infiltrate your dreamCollection: Dream
Time to eliminate things that no longer evolve me.Collection: Evolve
I was born to make mistakes, I ain't scared to take the weight.Collection: Mistake
That's the moment I learned that the more you believe in yourself, the stronger the vibration touches someone else, and things begin to happen the way you dreamed that they would.Collection: Believe
My hair is an aesthetic choice… At the same time, how you wear your hair is a political statement as well.Collection: Hair
We as Black people have to tell our own stories. We have to document our history. When we allow someone else to document our history the history becomes twisted and we get written out. We get our noses blown off.Collection: People
So the most natural thing to me is to stay as pure to or real to or close to who I am as possible.Collection: Real
I encourage breaking free of self inflicted holding pens. I encourage the use of intelligence in every decision. I encourage creating.Collection: Self
I have so much music that I do. Just like how a visual artist is always sketching something but they might not share it, I'm always writing songs or coming up with melodic lines on piano or guitar. It's therapy. It's always happening.Collection: Song
My style is a little masculine, and what I loved about Pyer Moss was how well he can make a blazer, the looseness of those pants, or color palette that he chooses from season to season.Collection: Color
It's just that little box in the middle of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Most of the time I go I don't even leave that apartment. I have just enough: a little bed, a little kitchen with two pots. I make some tea and I look out the window or just lay down.Collection: Two
I don't want to think too much about how I'm carving and what I'm carving - you are just carving away the excess clay and there's a piece underneath there. And it's kind of like getting out of the way. Maybe that's what the commonality is: It's getting out of the way so that the art can speak.Collection: Art
I remember when I signed with Kedar Entertainment through Universal Records. It was my first record deal and it's the one I still have now. At that time, there had been a couple of opportunities I was almost given, but at the last minute the giver came back and told me it couldn't happen.Collection: Couple
What I like about houses like Givenchy. It's easy to pull from. With Givenchy you can accessorize to build anything, any look.Collection: House
Now my record deal helps me to do things for free or give more time to my community than I could otherwise.Collection: Giving
The girls just like to be in the shoes. They like to scuff up the floors and walk around in high-heeled shoes that are too big for them, all over the house.Collection: Girl
I relate to that - he inspires me across the board. His music inspires me and reminds me to maintain honesty in the things that I do, to have an absence of fear. Listening to Earl Sweatshirt's music is like therapy to me.Collection: Honesty
My third mother is my paternal grandmother. Her name is Viola. She gave me my sense of knowing why, or knowing why it was important to ask why. She made me understand that I don't have to believe everything I hear.Collection: Mother
My favorite jewelry, it's just what I'm feeling at the time.Collection: Feelings
I love putting the music together. It's like artCollection: Art
I don't know if I'll ever accomplish most of my dreams - I have so many.Collection: Dream
All the women in my family were very creative.Collection: Creative
My nine-year-old daughter is very creative and colorful and trendy.Collection: Daughter
I solidify his [ Riccardo Tisci] vision and what he is trying to manifest, make it a crystal or solid thing because of the relationship I have with my culture and what my music means to him.Collection: Mean
I think giving is a blind act that should come from a part of me that sees no discrimination (that's why I called it "blind").Collection: Thinking