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.
Erykah Badu

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.
Erykah Badu

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 like the way that people who influenced me made me feel, that's completion.
Erykah Badu

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

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 enjoy it. I live for it.
Erykah Badu

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

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.
Erykah Badu

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.
Erykah Badu

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 it.
Erykah Badu

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.
Erykah Badu


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

I grew up listening to old soul.
Erykah Badu

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.
Erykah Badu

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 diva who could move the audience with the slightest gesture of her hand.
Erykah Badu

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.
Erykah Badu

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

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

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

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

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