Erykah Badu Quotes
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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.
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I love being an entertainer - not really fond of being a celebrity.
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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."
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I grew up listening to old soul
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A lot of people have dementia, which is great, because then they don't recognize me.
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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.
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My truth is relevant and my songs are relevant, but I have to recalibrate myself and speed up my vibrations so that I can communicate with the voice of this generation.
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We're all friends, inside the music and outside the music. I mean, we don't sound anything alike, we don't approach our music anything alike, but we come from the same genuine place. We want our music to be real and we don't want to compromise our art.
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I'm more like an oven than a microwave.
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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.
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Whereas I want everything to be peaceful during a birth, I take the total opposite approach when I'm helping someone come to terms with leaving this place - I play Richard Pryor records.
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In the morning, instead of saying to yourself, ‘I got to wake up’ say ‘I get to wake up!’
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Breathing becomes really easy when you're laughing. It kick starts that feeling of joy.
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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.
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My mom was the Diana Ross of our clan. She was always up-to-date, and always knew what to do and what not to do in a fashion sense.
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I imagine that when I am creating a song or a project or an album or putting some clothing together or cooking a meal, whatever it is, I don't really have a recipe. The fun part is to throw that big piece of clay in the middle of the table as hard as I can, and whatever shape it takes, that's what shape it takes, and then I start to carve away.
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In music, it makes for a good platform to take time and really mold a piece the way I need to mold it. When it comes to fashion, I create a functional art that moves.
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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.
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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.
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I'm not trying to win an award for being the best vegetarian, just want to be healthy.
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I thought it was cool how [ Riccardo Tisci] wanted to blend Africa and Asia because they relate to each other in so many different ways.
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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.
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What opens my heart is when my son wakes me up in the morning, nudging me and saying, 'Mommy, mommy!'
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Things are useless without practice.