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 not trying to win an award for being the best vegetarian, just want to be healthy. Take a salt bath. Do things that my parents were never able to do. I’m blessed to do...

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...

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...

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...

I don’t sing melodically. Rhyme pattern is how I sing. I also write like a lyricist or an MC because that’s what I was before I was a singer. I just took those elements and...

Hopefully my music is medicine, some type of antidote for something or some kind of explanation or just to feel good.

Personally, I don’t choose any particular religion or symbol or group of words or teachings to define me. That’s between me and the most high. You know, my higher self. The Creator.

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...

Hip-hop was created out of necessity. We needed to create some digitized things to help us understand what we were feeling.

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

I figure, if the mind just ‘has’ to be busy,why not make up happy shit?

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

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

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

Being honest is my job. That’s what music is for me.

I planned my success. I knew it was going to happen.

My eyes are green, Cause I eat a lot of vegetables,It don’t have nothing to do with your new friend

I grew up listening to old soul.

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...

Hip-hop is the people. What the people are moving toward is what hip-hop is. I think people are moving toward a freer way of thinking. Openness.

I thought the Billie Holiday comparison was beautiful. I think, Wow, what a wonderful, creative, helpful spirit. She’s someone who wanted to help others by sharing her emotion. That’s what I do, too, so I...

I started performing at two or three on a tape recorder, one of those little flat recorders where you just push play and record.

I love being an entertainer – not really fond of being a celebrity.

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...

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.

From then on, I realized this is what I want to do, what I’m supposed to do: Giving energy and receiving it back through applause. I love it. That’s my world. I love it. I...

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...

Never knew what a friendship was, Never knew how to really love, You can’t be what I need you to, & I don’t know why I fuck with you

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

I have a master plan as an artist. I’ve always said I’m not going to be punching nobody’s clock. I will work as an artist to survive in this world.

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

Music and the music business are two different things.

I believed in myself, and I’ve always worked very, very hard as an artist, and I am an artist in every sense of the word.

I’m a complete human being. I’m very emotional and loving. I feel, I hurt, I give, I take, and also I think. I analyze. I’m a sociologist, anthropologist.

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

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...

I love to leave the interpretation of my music up to the listener. It’s fun to see what they’ll say it is.

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.

I’m a Pisces, so I’m a very closed-book kind of person.

I think a lot of people have lost respect for the individual, you know, the individual, the person who doesn’t conform.

I’m kind of a recluse when it comes to going outside.

The music business is motivated by money. Music is motivated by energy and feelings.

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

Anything that had to do with art I been doing all my life. It was a gift. It’s nothing I work real hard at doing.

What makes me furious, not just because we’re in an interview, but I don’t like when writers take your words and put them somewhere else, in the wrong context in their own article about you.

I have advice for people – period – who are in unhealthy relationships: Follow your heart. It will get you to where you need to be. Sometimes it’s hard, sometimes it’s easy, the places that...

I’ve had two children. I’ve had three boyfriends. I’ve had a lot of things happen that can change your opinions and values and philosophies.

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’ve been a vegetarian since I was 19.