Hip-hop was created out of necessity. We needed to create some digitized things to help us understand what we were feeling.
— Erykah Badu
There are millions and billions of atoms of memory of all kinds of musical themes in me.
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.
I'm kind of a recluse when it comes to going outside.
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 can be Erykah the human being more than the celebrity.
I'm a performance artist first; I'm a recording artist second.
I'm a woman who has gone through many heartaches, enough to dedicate my whole life to trying to figure them out.
The music business is motivated by money. Music is motivated by energy and feelings.
Man, I don't want to have nothing to do with computers. I don't want the government in my business.
I planned my success. I knew it was going to happen.
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.
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.
But now I realize that this record business really needs me. No one else is trying to take a chance or do something different.
Anything that had to do with art I been doing all my life. It was a gift. It's nothing I work real hard at doing.
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 think a lot of people have lost respect for the individual, you know, the individual, the person who doesn't conform.
Hip-hop is the people. What the people are moving toward is what hip-hop is. I think people are moving toward a freer way of thinking. Openness.
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 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.
I don't have one song that sounds like another one in my entire catalog.
I grew up with all mothers, all women. I come from a long line of matriarchs, very strong women.
I'm a Pisces, so I'm a very closed-book kind of person.
Honey isn't really that good for you.
No one chooses to raise children alone.
Music and the music business are two different things.
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.
I love to leave the interpretation of my music up to the listener. It's fun to see what they'll say it is.
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 am not systematic at all when it comes to religion. I just love life. And I'm not judgmental. And I'm a vegetarian.
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.
Hopefully my music is medicine, some type of antidote for something or some kind of explanation or just to feel good.
I don't read music or anything, so when I produce, I go basically by ear.
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.
I don't sing melodically. Rhyme pattern is how I sing. I also write like a lyricist or an MC because that's what I was before I was a singer. I just took those elements and put them into music.
I've been a vegetarian since I was 19.
I try to be honest and I keep moving.
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 love being an entertainer - not really fond of being a celebrity.
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.
Being honest is my job. That's what music is for me.
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.
Marvin Gaye is one of my favorite revolutionaries. He spoke from his heart, his mind. That's what I want to do.
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 knew it would happen. I knew I'd be No. 1. I'm a new artist; I don't know the rules. Nobody told me it wouldn't happen.
I grew up listening to old soul.
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.
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.
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 love putting the music together. It's like art.
