Benjamin Clementine Quotes
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The minute I stop singing, I'm back to being shy. I'm soft-spoken because I never really talked to people. I didn't learn to do it.
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My music isn't mainstream music.
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When I first started singing in Paris, I sounded horrible: I was just singing to get some money to eat. And I wasn't singing my own songs: it was Bob Dylan, Bob Marley, Jimi Hendrix. Eventually, when I wrote my own music, my style just came out of my own place.
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I personally wouldn't want my second album to sound like my first; it might sound very rocky or hard rock - and that wouldn't be melancholy. So if people think my music is melancholic, then so be it. It's meant to be uplifting, and I'm just basically saying what needs to be said.
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At home and in church - which I didn't go to a lot, I was very rebellious, but my family was strict Christians - they would ask us, 'What's the shortest verse in the Bible?' and I was the one who always said 'John 11:35' straightaway. It stayed with me: the Bible has stayed with me.
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In Paris, I was really singing for the sake of living. But eventually people said, 'Keep going; you've got a great voice,' and I started having confidence in my voice all of a sudden. That's when I started creating my own music.
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I don't have a flat anywhere. I'm registered in the U.K. for tax purposes, I suppose, and my mail goes to my parents.
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I clearly remember my father cutting our jumpers and our sports clothes with scissors - because he didn't want us to wear jogging bottoms and hoodies. He thought that would somehow set the police on us.
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I wanted to find people who were like me, and I did, in the people I was reading.
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I accept the fact that angels are great heavenly beings, and I think some people give me the feeling that I'm with an angel.
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My heroes: Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Nina Simone.
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I got into a lot of trouble. Maybe that's why my parents didn't really like me and I didn't blend in with my family. I was always the naughty one.
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Honestly, I still don't know a lot of artists, and I want to keep it that way for a while. I think that's why I might be quite original.
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I do music to tell people my thoughts and opinions about life, emotions, politics, everything.
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I'm a very honest person, and I'm quite emotional for a man. If I want to say something, I'll say it.
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I'm actually doing what I like doing, which is mixing opera music and classical music with soul and folk. And I was writing and talking about what I've actually experienced, and I don't think that's very common.
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Paris is very dear to me, and I'll never forget Paris.
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People say my world is dark. No, there's a lot of lightness in my world. But I know very well that I'm not normal when I'm performing.
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I always try to be as discreet as possible, so I wear black.
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The fact is, it wasn't enjoyable being in secondary school. I was a weird kid.
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I didn't blend well with my classmates or my teachers.
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Sometimes it feels like my story overshadows my music.
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Now I'm standing in front of a thousand people. They're all looking at me, but they're sitting down. They're surrendered, so I have to keep on proving myself to them and giving them all my passion.
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Not all families stay together.