Quotes By Erykah Badu

I'm free. I just do what I want, say what I want, say how I feel, and I don't try to hurt nobody. I just try to make sure that I don't compromise my art in any kind of way, and I think people respect that.

I'm not satisfied with the explanations I get from tv or from school.

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.

And I figured out that the reason I couldn't get through the day as well as I can now is because I had too many things on my mind, on my plate, you know, for one person to have. So I started to eliminate some of the things that were too heavy to carry and unnecessary.

I grew up with all mothers, all women. I come from a long line of matriarchs, very strong women.

I don't read music or anything, so when I produce, I go basically by ear.

Well, if you look at all of the cultures in America, this is a great opportunity for us to really get acquainted with the rest of the world. America is the only place you can do that, but we don't have sense enough to take advantage of that.

Man, I don't want to have nothing to do with computers. I don't want the government in my business.

I can be Erykah the human being more than the celebrity.

I don't feel like I need to preach to the world or nothing like that. I just feel like I share what I say, and if listeners get it, they get it. And I never underestimate the audience's ability to feel me.

I knew it would happen. I knew I'd be No. 1. I'm a new artist; I don't know the rules. Nobody told me it wouldn't happen.

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.

I don't have one song that sounds like another one in my entire catalog.

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.

But now I realize that this record business really needs me. No one else is trying to take a chance or do something different.

I'm a performance artist first; I'm a recording artist second.

It's almost like a lot of black people in America, a lot of young black men, are born with this cloud over their heads. It's their penitentiary cloud, this philosophy we all have, that it's harder for us.

I'm a woman who has gone through many heartaches, enough to dedicate my whole life to trying to figure them out.

What I work hard at doing is staying on a path of being kind and showing and proving that I'm a good person to society. That's hard. The talent, that's a gift. I just came here like that.

I love putting the music together. It's like art.

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.