Erykah badu quotes

I was the bohemian in my family, the "this is my favorite shoe and I don't care if it has tape around it" kind of person. The tape could become a fashion statement. Or a political statement.

The light always shows on the outside if you are striving to be good on the inside.

Things are useless without practice.

My hair is an aesthetic choice… At the same time, how you wear your hair is a political statement as well.

I got a call from a mutual friend of ours, Charles King, who's also the executive producer. [Steven Caple Jr and I] had a conversation about it. I read it. We kind of finished each other's sentences when it came to the nuances and personality flaws that the character had, and some stereotypes and things we were trying to stay away from. We agreed on that as well. He just kind of allowed me to run rampant with the ideas. As we paced ourselves through, we developed Turquoise.

[The Land] is a film that just happens to be directed and written by a Puerto Rican guy with a black dad. It seemed like a very natural, human interaction between people who all just came from one common cesspool of bad luck.

No one chooses to raise children alone.

I just keep going. When the water's too still, I start splashing around and things jump out of the water.

My second mother is my maternal grandmother. Her name is Thelma. She also gave me a very powerful medicine; she made sure that I knew my role as a young lady and as someone with moral structures and principles. She taught me that if I was going to be involved with anything, whether it be spirituality, music, or some skill, that I have to practice.

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 grew up with all mothers, all women. I come from a long line of matriarchs, very strong women.

During childbirth and hospice I'll sing gospel songs that my grandma taught me when I was younger, or something I've made up, or I'll hum. I just play things that I think the audience will like.

Don't let anybody infiltrate your dream

I had the opportunity, as a child, to grow up in a community center where I was exposed to theater, music, art, and computer science; things that I would have never had the opportunity to even meet had it not been for those people taking time out of their schedules, helping us as children to travel all over the world while sitting in a gymnasium. That's what I did before I was a musician, before I was a recording artist, I was a teacher and a community leader.

I'd rather see a person with a natural mind and processed mind than a processed mind and a natural head.

If we were made in his image then call us by our names. Most intellects do not believe in god but they fear us just the same

It just works better for me to discriminate between which thoughts are mine and which come from elsewhere, before I even talk about them or express them - it helps to keep me focused on my path.

I'm a recovering undercover over-lover.

I take the same approach in all genres of art, across the board. It's intuitive.

My paternal grandmother gave me the courage to investigate things and not take things at face value or judge people by what I first imagine them to be.

...When it come to da: " What it do?! I don't fall for da: "Woop- TeE- WoOoo!

I'm just being who I am and expressing myself as everyone else does.

I don't know... I've been doing it for 17 years now, so of course I've seen pictures and thought, "Oh my god, I wish I would've never worn that." Yeah, but I did! And it was probably because it was my favorite thing at the time - my clothes always have some kind of emotion attached to them.

The reason why you don't see people looking like me is because I don't encourage that. I encourage you to be you.

Hopefully my music is medicine, some type of antidote for something or some kind of explanation or just to feel good.

I think people who vibrate at the same frequency, vibrate toward each other. They call it - in science - sympathetic vibrations.

What singing means to me, I never did consider myself a singer, I just let people watch me feel music and how it comes through me. I've worked on it and practiced a lot. I mean, music, I dance to it, and singing is just one way of getting it out of me.

I think [ fashion philosophy] it's about your smile and your smell.

The Man That Knowz Something Knowz That He Knowz Nothing At All.

When it comes to fashion or any high art, you have to have a combination of delicacy, along with taste.

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.

I'm a complete human being. I'm very emotional and loving. I feel, I hurt, I give, I take, and also I think. I analyze. I'm a sociologist, anthropologist.

I'm a Pisces, so I'm a very closed-book kind of person.

I don't plan how many people I work with. I don't charge anything. It's for my own learning, and I just enjoy being the welcoming committee. I became a doula by default.

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.

Because you're responsible for [children]. You are there to protect them, not possess them. I tell them, "Watch me and you might learn something."

The music business is motivated by money. Music is motivated by energy and feelings.

I encourage breaking free of self inflicted holding pens. I encourage the use of intelligence in every decision. I encourage creating.

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 being an entertainer - not really fond of being a celebrity.

Following your heart also means eliminating the things that no longer evolve you.

In the morning, instead of saying to yourself, ‘I got to wake up’ say ‘I get to wake up!’

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.

I don't think it matters what school you go to, but I think it's important for parents to be involved. And to know that when school stops, learning continues, and to continue teaching at home.

Hip-hop was created out of necessity. We needed to create some digitized things to help us understand what we were feeling.

I'm not trying to win an award for being the best vegetarian, just want to be healthy. Take a salt bath. Do things that my parents were never able to do. I'm blessed to do anything I want so I decide to take the best care of my body and my family in the same way. Holistically. Vitally.

Time to eliminate things that no longer evolve me.

You don't have to believe everything you think.

Music and the music business are two different things.

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 try to be honest and I keep moving.

I'm pretty mutable as a human being, period - if you put me on Pluto, I can figure it out.

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.

I go through phases of stuff.

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.

Better think while it's still legal.

From then on, I realized this is what I want to do, what I'm supposed to do: Giving energy and receiving it back through applause. I love it. That's my world. I love it. I enjoy it. I live for it.

I'm pretty mutable as a human being.

My eyes are green, Cause I eat a lot of vegetables, It don't have nothing to do with your new friend

Artists need some kind of stimulating experience a lot of times, which crystallizes when you sing about it or paint it or sculpt it. You literally mold the experience the way you want. It's therapy.

I live in a queendom, ruled by a womb-iverse.

I don't require sex for happiness - I need companionship. I need a partner I can depend on, that I can love and grow with.

Honey isn't really that good for you.

My fifth mother is Mother Nature - the things I had to learn on my own, the understanding I had to come to and still have to come to as a young woman, as a responsible mother, a responsible granddaughter and child. She teaches me willpower, honesty, and the things we need to heal ourselves from moment to moment.

I don't read music or anything, so when I produce, I go basically by ear.

So the most natural thing to me is to stay as pure to or real to or close to who I am as possible.

André and I are still best of friends, always have been and always will be. When our 18-year-old son, Seven, started high school, we both agreed to be in the same city, so André is in Dallas all the time, and we're always all together doing something.

My work as a doula also extends all the way to the end of life. I sit at the bedsides of people who are passing on in hospices or nursing homes, for the people and families who want that kind of thing.

I can be Erykah the human being more than the celebrity.

I grew up listening to old soul

I'm learning from them! Everyone says that, but it's true. You learn more about yourself from them than from any other lesson.

I have advice for people - period - who are in unhealthy relationships: Follow your heart. It will get you to where you need to be. Sometimes it's hard, sometimes it's easy, the places that your heart takes you. But continue to follow it. Where the train leads you - you'll get there.

I'm only in competition with my last level.

Art is the absence of fear.

Some people come up and ask for an autograph and don't even look at me. They're like, 'Here, do it.' That don't bother me, but it doesn't open my heart.

Personally, I don't choose any particular religion or symbol or group of words or teachings to define me. That's between me and the most high. You know, my higher self. The Creator.

Im a hip-hopper, and its something you live and do. It makes me angry that were misrepresented, that were being killed every day by one another, by the government, by the food we eat, the choices we make. It makes me angry because it doesnt have to be that way and it is.

I'm more like an oven than a microwave.

Breathing becomes really easy when you're laughing. It kick starts that feeling of joy.

We mainly focus on putting music, art, dance, theater, all forms of art, back into the community, so the community can put it into the world.

What does music mean to me? I don't think I would really be much without it, without it coming through me. It's my means of communication, my means of growth, my means of transportation from one point in my life to another.

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'm not satisfied with the explanations I get from tv or from school.

I don't feel like I need to preach to the world or nothing like that. I just feel like I share what I say, and if listeners get it, they get it. And I never underestimate the audience's ability to feel me.

I don't have one song that sounds like another one in my entire catalog.

This pain to remain the same outweigh the pain to change... When you get tired enough is when you begin to want to sacrifice everything inside of you—the fear just leaves

Poor is the new black.

I view my hair and clothes as functional art.

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.

A lot of people have dementia, which is great, because then they don't recognize me.

I mean thats a big part of our existence here on earth, the personal relationship we have with the person that we love, with the person that we make love to, with the person that we share our lives with. We expect a lot of things back from our loved one, and the lesson is to accept and not expect.

I really can't say what inspires me the most, because I'm inspired by just about everything. My feelings and relationships, my family, Scooby-Doo. Opinion of my work. Everything. Not just one thing.

I could do a few more sit-ups and my waistline would be less difficult.

Whenever I think about funk music, it has a look - and that's how it sounds.

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.

The wise healer endures the pain. Cry. Tears bring joy.

He definitely does what a partner is supposed to do, that is, evolve you.

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.

I trust the political system to be what it is. It's a structure to keep the country running, a boat to get us [citizens] from one side to the other, and it has the country's best interests at heart. Not the people's.

Hip-hop is not something we do, it's something we live. It's the way we dress, the way we talk... everybody bobbing to the same beat. It's a culture, and you have to find your own place in that culture. Top 10 or Top 40 can't dictate that. They can only dictate what's marketable.

I think a lot of people have lost respect for the individual, you know, the individual, the person who doesn't conform.

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 was born to make mistakes, I ain't scared to take the weight.

Now keep in mind that I'm an artist and I'm sensitive about my sh*t

Hip-Hop is bigger than the government.

Vegan food is soul food in its truest form. Soul food means to feed the soul. And, to me, your soul is your intent. If your intent is pure, you are pure.

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.

I planned my success. I knew it was going to happen.

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.

Society has a problem with female nudity when it is not . . . ”—Badu pauses to get her words together; she wants this point to be very clear—“. . . when it is not packaged for the consumption of male entertainment. Then it becomes confusing.

I'm not trying to win an award for being the best vegetarian, just want to be healthy.

We were all born, and we all came to the music business with everything we had. Some of us just don't get a chance. Now there's a lot of other people like myself, indeed, who are getting heard worldwide. That gives other artists a chance.

I love watching Rihanna in fashion. I like to see her take chances and risks. I like seeing Naomi Campbell in the forefront. They're both women who stand out and use their bodies as canvases to introduce this functional art to the world. They carry it in a way that is very inspiring.

Marvin Gaye is one of my favorite revolutionaries. He spoke from his heart, his mind. That's what I want to do.

I consider my musical ability to be a gift from the Creator. It's not that I try to work hard or nothing like that, it's a gift, it was given to me, and I appreciate it.

I don't know why, it's just what I feel inside, the thoughts that I sing about. It's just my truth. Sometimes my emotions can be mistaken for messages.

I believed in myself, and I've always worked very, very hard as an artist, and I am an artist in every sense of the word.

Peace and Blessings manifest with every lesson learned. If your knowledge were your wealth then it would be well earned.

Being honest is my job. That's what music is for me.

If you invite negativity in, you have to feed it and hang out with it. Best not to invite it in.

We lock ourselves into our own philosophies, our own religions, our own walks of life, and if we fail, we condemn ourselves and then we get sick.

I think the job of an artist is to be honest and fearless.

My fourth mother, my godmother, she passed away a couple years ago - her name was Gwen. She was the theater director over at the gym where I grew up and learned about all those awesome things I told you about already. She was the one who taught me terms like "upstage" and "downstage," all those technical things about the art of what I do - how to breathe what I see, how to move. They were all her tactics, not anything learned or given to me through a theory, but rather by her natural abilities.

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.

I come from a long line of matriarchal women, and my greatest teachers were my mothers.