Erykah Badu

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.

Music and the music business are two different things.

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

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

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.

No one chooses to raise children alone.