Benjamin Clementine Quotes
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Personally, I wouldn't mind going on stage naked, totally naked.
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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 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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Where I'm staying, near Lafayette Street, Bowery, and Houston, you get different people with different spirits, and that's what I like.
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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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I always see my music for its rewards rather than its awards. But I always thought if there was one award I'd want to win, it would be the Mercury.
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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 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 realised that we're all equal - it's all about helping each other.
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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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My heroes: Nick Cave, Tom Waits, Nina Simone.
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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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I do music to tell people my thoughts and opinions about life, emotions, politics, everything.
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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'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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Sometimes it feels like my story overshadows my music.
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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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I didn't blend well with my classmates or my teachers.
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When I think about Edmonton, Silver Street and Pymmes Park, the old people whose faces are so unhappy, it pushes me to be better. I want to be better to help places like this.
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Fame is like icin' on the cake.
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I was on the train; I did play, but I also played in bars, in the streets, at birthday parties for people who discovered me on the train.
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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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Paris is very dear to me, and I'll never forget Paris.