My mom was the Diana Ross of our clan. She was always up–to–date, and always knew what to do and what not to do in a fashion sense. — Erykah Badu

I think [ fashion philosophy] it’s about your smile and your smell. — Erykah Badu

My girls are very fashionable. They have a very good eye for marrying style and fashion. — Erykah Badu

When it comes to fashion or any high art, you have to have a combination of delicacy, along with taste. — Erykah Badu

I was the bohemian in my family, the ‘this is my favorite shoe and I don’t care if it has tape around it’ kind of person. The tape could become a fashion statement. Or a political statement. — Erykah Badu

Things are useless without practice. — Erykah Badu

I feel like I haven’t done anything. What have I done? I’ve just made a few records. — 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

Be you. Make sure you’re saying something when you’re saying something. It’s important to sound like you, to feel like you, to be like you. Be you. — 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. — 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 don’t know why, it’s just what I feel inside, the thoughts that I sing about. It’s just my truth. Sometimes my emotions can be mistaken for messages. — Erykah Badu

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. — Erykah Badu

I know the community mostly for its art and culture… and of course its food, I eat at their restaurants.’ ‘They make you feel like taking off your shoes… it feels like home. — Erykah Badu

You don’t have to believe everything you think. — Erykah Badu

I don’t have no conceptIon of tIme. I don’t know what that means. — Erykah Badu

Time to eliminate things that no longer evolve me. — Erykah Badu

My favorite jewelry, it’s just what I’m feeling at the time. — Erykah Badu

My hair is an aesthetic choice… At the same time, how you wear your hair is a political statement as well. — Erykah Badu

I’ll dabble here and there in different forms of the art, but the label has me locked down like a slave so, of course, I’ll be doing albums during this time. — Erykah Badu

Now my record deal helps me to do things for free or give more time to my community than I could otherwise. — Erykah Badu

Music and the music business are two different things. — Erykah Badu

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

People who say that music is dead or hip–hop is dead are refusing to evolve. — Erykah Badu

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. — Erykah Badu

I’m only in competition with my last level. It don’t have nothing to do with music or anything. And the last level is hard competition, the last place you were. — Erykah Badu

Whenever I think about funk music, it has a look–and that’s how it sounds. — Erykah Badu

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

I solidify his [ Riccardo Tisci] vision and what he is trying to manifest, make it a crystal or solid thing because of the relationship I have with my culture and what my music means to him. — Erykah Badu

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 put them into music. — Erykah Badu

I felt It would be really cool, I handpIcked the artIsts and the musIc; I was just amazed that It came together so fast. It was one of the most brIllIantly receIved pIeces of the evenIng. — Erykah Badu

We mainly focus on putting music, art, dance, theater, all forms of art, back into the community, so the community can put it into the world. — Erykah Badu

In music, it makes for a good platform to take time and really mold a piece the way I need to mold it. When it comes to fashion, I create a functional art that moves. — Erykah Badu

I think the job of an artist is to be honest and fearless. — Erykah Badu

I’m a performance artist first; I’m a recording artist second. — Erykah Badu

All of my children are the same way I am. They’re little artists too, in their own ways. — 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 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 think what makes people think that is because of things people write. It really doesn’t have anything to do with the artist. — Erykah Badu

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. — Erykah Badu

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. — Erykah Badu

Through [my children] patience, they’re showing me how much they support what’s going on, because I’m having to do a lot of work right now. — 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

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

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. — Erykah Badu

Riccardo Tisci ] has an interesting approach to weaving the contemporary with the couture, and blending tribes and collections. It always seems to work. — Erykah Badu

I really can’t say what inspires me the most, because I’m inspired by just about everything. My feelings and relationships, my family, Scooby–Doo. Opinion of my work. Everything. Not just one thing. — Erykah Badu

I don’t plan how many people I work with. I don’t charge anything. It’s for my own learning, and I just enjoy being the welcoming committee. I became a doula by default. — 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

Different periods, different cultures–it’s just the way my mind works. My music is that way as well. There’s a foundation but the inspiration comes from everywhere. I’ve been influenced by so many things. — Erykah Badu

It just works better for me to discriminate between which thoughts are mine and which come from elsewhere, before I even talk about them or express them–it helps to keep me focused on my path. — Erykah Badu

My work as a doula also extends all the way to the end of life. I sit at the bedsides of people who are passing on in hospices or nursing homes, for the people and families who want that kind of thing. — Erykah Badu

I’m learning from them! Everyone says that, but it’s true. You learn more about yourself from them than from any other lesson. — Erykah Badu