Jillian Hervey
I've always been kind of surrounded by music my whole life, so my earliest memories of it were just hearing it in the house.Collection: Memories
I was curious because I hadn't really known anyone to do just that, so I would stop in on his sessions with his rapper friends, and then one day, I told Astro Raw "I'm looking to sing. He told me to try it out and then we made 'Treat Me Like Fire' and everything started."Collection: Rapper
I was working on a piece for one of the things I was dancing to and I needed to have original music. I didn't know where to begin, I'm so bad at computers, and I remembered that he actually made music. I asked Astro Raw if he'd be interested in scoring and he said yes.Collection: Dancing
In New York everyone just kind of knows each other.Collection: New York
Basically, my senior year of high school, I was going to look at prospective colleges and I went to visit Northeastern University because one of my friends was going.Collection: Senior
I think the lion, besides the elephant, was the one animal that I just started thinking about so much.Collection: Animal
I just wanted to shed everything and do the things I really wanted to do. All the things I was scared of, I just wanted to try. It was like a clearing.Collection: Trying
[Dancing] was just a nice way of expressing myself, listening to music, and being able to move around and be free, but also really learning something. It was just a nice balance of training and expressing yourself at the same time.Collection: Nice
[My mom] put me in dance class when I was really young just as a thing to do and I loved it. I remember being excited every time I went, no matter how tired I was - it was the one thing that I always liked doing.Collection: Mom
This is what I love to do. I love to perform for people that get it or just want something interesting.Collection: Want Something
To be on stage, to be sharing a stage with Lauryn Hill, Grace Jones, SZA, Kelis, and all these incredible women, I'm like 'When did this happen?'Collection: Grace
We had spent a lot of time in London [with Lucas Goodman], which has been amazing, but also it was kind of a homecoming and we felt so surrounded by a specific community of people who are just so New York, so unapologetically themselves and so creative.Collection: New York
There's been so many, I think [Lucas Goodman and I] share this, but for us, Afropunk was a really big moment just because it was in New York.Collection: New York
More than anything, it's been a transition into embracing my destiny. I have everything around me to be able to do this properly. Whether or not I was hiding from that early on, I think now it's great to feel that way. It's just the journey.Collection: Journey
What kind of art do I want to make? What do I stand for? What inspires me? And then to have people in return respond to that... I think that's the greatest thing because throughout dancing, I'm always looking for that.Collection: Art
The greatest blessing is that, within all of this, I've still been challenged every day to question and show who I am.Collection: Blessing
Back then, it's weird, because I wasn't consciously thinking about it and I think that's why the doors opened and I had the opportunity. It was a big shift and I realized that you can plan and think your life is going somewhere, but you also have to surrender to what opportunities present themselves and really go for those as well.Collection: Opportunity
For the name Lion Babe, we are a little avant-garde, a little left. And with bands like Blondie, Pink Floyd, or Jamiroquai, you don't know they're bands, you just kind of hear the name and you're like 'What is it?' so that was the kind of thing we wanted to do.Collection: Names
Being vulnerable and strong is a complicated thing, but that's who we are.Collection: Strong
I think my life dramatically shifted when I met Lucas [Goodman] and it wasn't even planned. I had a very clear vision of what I was going to do.Collection: Thinking
I grew up always wanting to be a dancer and when I went to New York, I fell in love with the idea of performing in all ways.Collection: New York
I saw myself traveling with a company or making my own work and being a little weird. I wasn't thinking about the business side of anything, I just knew that I loved dancing.Collection: Thinking
Being in New York, and meeting really amazing, talented, eccentric, and bold people, and just feeling really excited about life, got me really revved up and I just felt like everything was at my fingertips - that I could try anything. I really felt invincible. It was such a shift.Collection: New York
I had been with a guy for seven years and I was done with that. I wanted to reinvent my whole life and change my hair - I'd had brown, straight extensions forever - and I just wanted to get rid of that, to shed skin, and really just be independent.Collection: Independent
[New York] gives you room to be weird; you can be yourself and you can wear whatever you want. No one is really going to judge you because everyone is doing their own thing.Collection: Being Yourself
We're always working on new music and now that we have our own studio space we have tried to stay focus and really explore. But we have projects out that we are super proud of and want to keep building on that.Collection: Focus
It doesn't necessarily always come down to race in the music industry. It can be whoever has the most money, has the most power, and that's really the struggle - dealing with how crazy money is.Collection: Crazy
I think also, obviously, having someone like Lucas [Goodman], and the people around me are very, not gender-driven or any of that, so when we come in as thing, that's what it is. You can work with us or not work with us and I think that has been helpful. I don't try to put myself in a vulnerable position in that way. I won't just sit quietly.Collection: Thinking
I love writing to my little sister. It's a very nice, easy kind of way I always find inspiration.Collection: Nice
There's so many people that I feel like as soon as that happens, they can really be and focus on what they want to do.Collection: People
Lion Babe, on a work day, is definitely a process. I obviously could do it by myself, but I definitely prefer not to. It's a lot of hair. I used to start with little pieces, and then it just got bigger, and bigger, and bigger.Collection: Hair
The main thing I like to do is have a mix of the '70s glamour and emulate a lot of ladies I love, like, Diana Ross, Chaka Khan, Donna Summers. I remember thinking that as a young girl, they were so cool and iconic. I missed that!Collection: Girl
Making that statement of 'I'm not afraid to be untamed.' It's just kind of the marriage of those two things.Collection: Two
It's definitely evolved from where it started - for 'Treat Me Like Fire,' I wanted something extremely wild because I was going to be running through the woods and I wanted it really nappy and crazy.Collection: Running
I think with the '70s style, you can do a bigger curling iron, so you get those long swirls. If you want it natural-natural, you can also just brush your hair out and tease that. So, it varies on what kind of thing you want to do, but it's nice to have a couple more hands in there to help me or else it takes really long.Collection: Couple
I think when we were starting off, I picked a group of women to represent me. The top tiers of everyone that I've worked with are women. It felt more comfortable because they can relate to me.Collection: Thinking
In music in general, you're always getting a lot of information, buts it's most important to have honest communication. It's always important to understand that we can do so much individually if we connect with one another and have honest conversations. As scary as it is, it can be very liberating. Staying connected to the people you love and staying connected to the things that really matter has been my biggest lesson.Collection: Communication
The people that have inspired me the most were dancers and choreographers.Collection: People
I quit piano and violin because it felt too rigid. It was just my thing, something I fell in love with from a very early age.Collection: Piano
I'm a diehard animal lover - I've always loved animals - but it was just one of those trips that I felt like I was going back to the beginning of where earth started. At the time, where a lot of stuff was brewing anyway, to be in such a beautiful and barren land, and just looking at how life began with all these creatures, I just started to really think about animals and time and just all of it.Collection: Beautiful
South Africa was something that just kind of hit me.Collection: Kind
I'm a Gemini and Lucas Goodman is a Leo, so we definitely wanted some duality. We definitely balance each other out in a lot of ways, but we're also very different.Collection: Balance
Because of the time we're in, it's so easy to just blend all of it together and it's kind of like you're listening to everything all at once.Collection: Listening
I definitely listened to Lauryn Hill - her's was like the first album I bought myself. Brandy's Never Say Never and Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill were always in rotation for a couple of years.Collection: Couple
Half of my family is in Los Angeles, so my cousin was the first person to play me, like, Snoop Dogg, and I would always feel like 'Omg I shouldn't be listening to this,' and my other cousin was the first to introduce me to Aaliyah, so every time I'd go to the West Coast, I'd get those West Coast vibes.Collection: Cousin
I think just being a '90s kid - I was not a Backstreet Boys girl, I was definitely into NSYNC.Collection: Girl
Of course the Disney movies, you know all the soundtracks, and anything Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire were doing - Singing in the Rain was one of my favorite musicals I used to watch a lot because my mom came from a theatre background.Collection: Mom
Between my mom and dad, I would hear a lot of Earth, Wind, and Fire. My mom loved Chaka Khan, so that was on in the car a lot.Collection: Mom
I grew up as a dancer, and music and dance are so closely tied, that in ballet class you're listening to all this classical music, and in modern class you're working with a live drummer. It was something that always made me feel really comfortable and I've had a connection to since the beginning.Collection: Ballet Class