I always loved music, but I didn't know if I could be the kind of artist that makes a difference.
— India Arie
I always pray when I write songs that my spirit guides, or whoever is with me, inspiring me, would let me speak the truth.
When someone is themselves through their music, it's soul music. James Taylor is soul music to me 'cause it's just him talking about him. It doesn't have anything to do with black or growing up in the church; it's where it comes from. It's just soul music.
I don't really consider myself a teacher. I think - like, I have opinions like everyone else, and I just share my opinions.
I feel like I'm always gonna sing and write songs because it's me.
The thing that makes me feel most alive is knowing that there's something that I have to do that I'm afraid of.
When I perform, I'm just very much just being myself.
I like being a role model - people have told me that I am a role model for empowered women, but I don't see myself that way.
I didn't even listen to Bob Marley until I was 17.
I've been trying to arrive at a person who is self-defined and able to make my own mistakes rather than having other people make them for me.
What I love about Christmas music is it stays around every year and comes back.
I'm kind of like a folk singer mixed with soul, but I feel like if you really are a lover of hip-hop music, make the beat banging as possible and then put the message in so that people get the honey with the medicine.
What I love about Stevie Wonder is the way he makes people feel. He's one of the best examples of how music can heal.
Nina Simone sacrificed so much to be as bold as she was about being black and about being female in an era where that could have cost her life.
I am on an album with theater icon Billy Porter called the 'Soul of Richard Rodgers.' Our duet is called 'Carefully Taught.'
So many people have been abused. It's not rare; it's a very common human experience, and we survive.
Just like the air you breathe or the water you drink, music shapes you. The trouble is, most people don't use it to spread love and healing. But I think music can make a social contribution if you're responsible with it.
Everything in my music has always been emotionally and spiritually motivated... But after I started doing yoga, the place where I came from changed drastically.
I write about my experiences, so a lot of times, I do write about people.
There's a difference in being opinionated and judgmental; I'm still trying to figure out what that fine line is - I think we are all.
I wouldn't be back in my 20s for anything.
Saying things on paper that I would never, ever say, and saying things to myself, admitting things to myself, about myself and my personality, just putting it on paper, is how I deal with emotional pain.
Just to keep myself balanced, I do things like yoga and meditation.
I'm not just making rhymes and making melodies. I'm expressing my true life force, energy.
I think anyone who is ever on TV is a role model for somebody.
I am really excited to be partnering with Palmer's Cocoa Butter Formula. Aside from being a longtime fan of their products, they're a family business with a strong ethical foundation, and that makes us a great match.
Sound is energy, and that energy resonates with your energy. And it gives you a certain feeling.
Joe Sample was one of my heroes. I met him at the Curacao Jazz festival, and I fanned out like he was the Beatles!
In my opinion, you just have to make the music. Make the music and work as hard as you can to get it out there.
I'm really judgmental, especially about things that I feel make my life harder.
Your soul is between you and God.
To spread love, healing, peace, and joy is my mission in life - and so I speak up.
Listening to 'Songs in the Key of Life' always puts me in a good mood.
It's important to have a place where you can recharge. Everybody's is different, but I do think it should entail quiet because it needs to be where you hear your spirit most clearly. For me, that's the prayer room in my apartment. And since my home is 700 square feet, I mean the coat closet near the front door.
At 16, I started really loving country music, and Collin Raye just had the most amazing ballads!
I know that I pray a lot, and I take time for myself.
One of the things that helped me to be confident is to be the kind of musician that I respect. I always liked musicians who wrote their own songs, and so I started writing my own songs.
Neo-soul is really less about a sound than it is about a look, in my opinion.
Between '06 and '09, I dealt with pain by eating. And I was like, 'Oh, crap, eating makes you gain weight!'
Everybody has their own path. I got mine.
When it comes down to the song writing, I'm just very slow - very slow. Because the songs are about my life, so I'm doing emotional work on myself.
I like Brandy a lot. She's a vocal prodigy.
If we can just focus our attention where it matters, we can effect change.
You deal with what comes to you. If it's something you don't like, you deal with it the best you can. If it's something that you love, you rise to the occasion.
In hindsight, I feel like I made the right decision to choose production that would get played on black radio.
I've never said anything that I didn't want to say on a record, ever.
I loved her music and the fact that she was a classically trained pianist and that her voice was so unique, but what made Nina Simone my hero is that I had never seen anyone in the public eye who looked anything like me at all, ever.
It's not my place to say how Zoe Saldana perceives herself, and I can't say how anybody else perceives her, either. I see her as a black person of Hispanic origin, but I don't even know what that really means, because I don't know anything about race and Hispanic culture.
I was born in love with music. My mother is a singer. Many of my aunts and uncles on my mother's side are musical. My grandparents sang and played blues piano. It's literally in my blood.
For the first ten years of my career, I felt suffocated. People constantly stood over me while I tried to create. And in 2009, I hit rock bottom. I couldn't find myself because I was looking to be defined by the music industry or by being number one on the Billboard charts.
