Erica Abi Wright (born February 26, 1971), known professionally as Erykah Badu (/ˈɛrɪkə bɑːˈduː/), is an American singer-songwriter, record producer, disc jockey, activist, and actress.
There are millions and billions of atoms of memory of all kinds of musical themes in me.
Whenever I think about funk music, it has a look - and that's how it sounds.
The wise healer endures the pain. Cry. Tears bring joy.
Hip-Hop is bigger than the government.
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.
What draws me to a project is how sympathetic I am toward it, so that I can relax into it and give up myself.
I encourage breaking free of self inflicted holding pens. I encourage the use of intelligence in every decision. I encourage creating.
Some people come up and ask for an autograph and don't even look at me. They're like, 'Here, do it. ' That don't bother me, but it doesn't open my heart.
We literally just finished making this gown 20 minutes ago. I love it. It's my favorite color.
I've been a vegetarian since I was 19.
What opens my heart is when my son wakes me up in the morning, nudging me and saying, 'Mommy, mommy!'
My fourth mother, my godmother, she passed away a couple years ago - her name was Gwen. She was the theater director over at the gym where I grew up and learned about all those awesome things I told you about already. She was the one who taught me terms like "upstage" and "downstage," all those technical things about the art of what I do - how to breathe what I see, how to move. They were all her tactics, not anything learned or given to me through a theory, but rather by her natural abilities.
I'd rather see a person with a natural mind and processed mind than a processed mind and a natural head.
I remember when I signed with Kedar Entertainment through Universal Records. It was my first record deal and it's the one I still have now. At that time, there had been a couple of opportunities I was almost given, but at the last minute the giver came back and told me it couldn't happen.
What singing means to me, I never did consider myself a singer, I just let people watch me feel music and how it comes through me. I've worked on it and practiced a lot. I mean, music, I dance to it, and singing is just one way of getting it out of me.
Things are useless without practice.
When it comes to fashion or any high art, you have to have a combination of delicacy, along with taste.
Time to eliminate things that no longer evolve me.
We were all born, and we all came to the music business with everything we had. Some of us just don't get a chance. Now there's a lot of other people like myself, indeed, who are getting heard worldwide. That gives other artists a chance.
What a frequency What a voice. I love Bilal. I couldn't imagine a music world without his voice.