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

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...

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

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

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

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

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 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...

I grew up listening to old soul.

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...

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

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

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...

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.

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

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...

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

Music and the music business are two different things.

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

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

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

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

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

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

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

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.

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

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...

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 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 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.

Honey isn’t really that good for you.

I’ve been a vegetarian since I was 19.

There are millions and billions of atoms of memory of all kinds of musical themes in me.

I consider my musical ability to be a gift from the Creator. It’s not that I try to work hard or nothing like that, it’s a gift, it was given to me, and I appreciate...

I try to be honest and I keep moving.

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.

Artists need some kind of stimulating experience a lot of times, which crystallizes when you sing about it or paint it or sculpt it. You literally mold the experience the way you want. It’s therapy.

No one chooses to raise children alone.

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...