Being honest is my job. That's what music is for me.
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'm not satisfied with the explanations I get from tv or from school.
Hopefully my music is medicine, some type of antidote for something or some kind of explanation or just to feel good.
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 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.
There are millions and billions of atoms of memory of all kinds of musical themes in me.
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 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 grew up listening to old soul.
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.
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 being an entertainer - not really fond of being a celebrity.
I started performing at two or three on a tape recorder, one of those little flat recorders where you just push play and record.
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.
Oh, yeah, I see the world differently now. Actually, when I first had the baby, I was breast-feeding him for two years straight. So we were together for two years of his life, every single day, all hours of the day. So I was two people, and I eventually morphed back into one.
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.
No one chooses to raise children alone.
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.
