1. “The man who knows something knows he knows nothing at all.” – Erykah Badu
2. “I’d rather see a person with a natural mind and processed mind than a processed mind and a natural head.” – Erykah Badu
3. “My eyes are green, Cause I eat a lot of vegetables, It don’t have nothing to do with your new friend.” – Erykah Badu
4. “I try to be honest and I keep moving.” – Erykah Badu
5. “I mean thats a big part of our existence here on earth, the personal relationship we have with the person that we love, with the person that we make love to, with the person that we share our lives with. We expect a lot of things back from our loved one, and the lesson is to accept and not expect.” – Erykah Badu
6. “Hopefully my music is medicine, some type of antidote for something or some kind of explanation or just to feel good.” – Erykah Badu
7. “I don’t have a religion, I don’t think anyone can define anyone’s relationship with the creator.” – Erykah Badu
8. “I have so much music that I do. Just like how a visual artist is always sketching something but they might not share it, I’m always writing songs or coming up with melodic lines on piano or guitar. It’s therapy. It’s always happening.” – Erykah Badu
9. “I create my own calm and I keep my balance, because I know that it’s not really me, by myself… The Creator always gives me the energy.” – Erykah Badu
10. “When you’re performing, you’re creating a moment.” – Erykah Badu
11. “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
12. “So the most natural thing to me is to stay as pure to or real to or close to who I am as possible.” – Erykah Badu
13. “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
14. “I been rapping and flowing since the Sugar Hill Gang was out.” – Erykah Badu
15. “Whenever I think about funk music, it has a look – and that’s how it sounds.” – Erykah Badu
16. “Breathing becomes really easy when you’re laughing. It kick starts that feeling of joy.” – Erykah Badu
17. “I never underestimate the audience’s ability to connect with me.” – Erykah Badu
18. “People are uncomfortable with sexuality that’s not for male consumption.” – Erykah Badu
19. “A lot of people have dementia, which is great, because then they don’t recognize me.” – Erykah Badu
20. “The man that knows something knows that he knows nothing at all.” – Erykah Badu
21. “I strongly believe that the more positive my vibration is, the clearer my message will be. I keep my negative thoughts from infiltrating my pathway and my dreams. Other people’s thoughts are none of my business.” – Erykah Badu
22. “I don’t know how to read music, I never understood the theory. I am not a great dancer, I am a cool vocalist, but it just feels good to me. I like how it feels, it became my therapy and later my job.” – Erykah Badu
23. “My style is a little masculine, and what I loved about Pyer Moss was how well he can make a blazer, the looseness of those pants, or color palette that he chooses from season to season.” – Erykah Badu
24. “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
25. “I planned my success. I knew it was going to happen.” – Erykah Badu
26. “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
27. “Even if the project requires you to have all the ducks in a line, I can’t do that. I don’t create way.” – Erykah Badu
28. “I’m a performance artist first; I’m a recording artist second.” – Erykah Badu
29. “Peace and Blessings manifest with every lesson learned. If your knowledge were your wealth then it would be well earned.” – Erykah Badu
30. “We literally just finished making this gown 20 minutes ago. I love it. It’s my favorite color.” – Erykah Badu
31. “Marvin Gaye is one of my favorite revolutionaries. He spoke from his heart, his mind. That’s what I want to do.” – Erykah Badu
32. “I view my hair and clothes as functional art…” – Erykah Badu
33. “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
34. “I’m in training to become a midwife. I’m almost there and before I know it I’ll be able to open my own practice, if that’s what I desire.” – Erykah Badu
35. ” I think music is timeless. It shouldn’t have a shelf life, or a disc- life, or a deadline. It’s about a lifeline to me. So whenever I want to bring something back to life, I put a visual to it and put it out for people to enjoy it, give it another face, another turn.” – Erykah Badu
36. “I really enjoy being the child’s ‘welcoming committee’ and to help someone usher his or her spirit into the world in a very peaceful way is very effortless to me.” – Erykah Badu
37. “I get inspiration from everything. Fred Flinstone, the Carol Burnett Show, an argument, a broken heart. It all inspires me because my music is therapy and it’s a means for me to express how I feel immediately. I’m inspired by a lot of things.” – Erykah Badu
38. “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
39. “Time to eliminate things that no longer evolve me.” – Erykah Badu
40. “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 anything I want, so I decide to take the best care of my body and my family in the same way. Holistically. Vitally.” – Erykah Badu
41. “This pain to remain the same outweigh the pain to change… When you get tired enough is when you begin to want to sacrifice everything inside of you—the fear just leaves” – Erykah Badu
42. “I’m just being who I am and expressing myself as everyone else does.” – Erykah Badu
43. “It makes me angry that we are being killed every day by one another, by the government, by the food we eat, the choices we make, it makes me very angry. Because it doesn’t have to be this way.” – Erykah Badu
44. “My religion is art, from the time I was a kid I was in dance class or theater or making clothes, doing something pertaining to art.” – Erykah Badu
45. “I think a lot of people have lost respect for the individual, you know, the individual, the person who doesn’t conform.” – Erykah Badu
46. “The heartbeat is also music to me.” – Erykah Badu
47. “The light always shows on the outside if you are striving to be good on the inside.” – Erykah Badu
48. “I desire to evolve in every part of my life. I just desire that and then it comes naturally.” – Erykah Badu
49. “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
50. “You don’t have to believe everything you think.” – Erykah Badu
51. “I actually started writing it because I was inspired by my own personal growth.” – Erykah Badu
52. “I’m only in competition with my last level.” – Erykah Badu
53. “That makes me feel good because that’s what the music I listen to did for me. And if it’s doing that, that’s good, ‘cause it’s creating some energy in people, some movement.” – Erykah Badu
54. “Following your heart also means eliminating the things that no longer evolve you.” – Erykah Badu
55. “It’s weird, but if I decide to do an album, then the ideas start fitting themselves together. I consider myself a nice, slow burn. Plus, it’s not a race. And I have a lot to share.” – Erykah Badu
56. “I was born to make mistakes, I ain’t scared to take the weight.” – Erykah Badu
57. “When it comes to fashion or any high art, you have to have a combination of delicacy, along with taste.” – Erykah Badu
58. “If you make a decision, a pact with someone, your friend, you should say, ‘I’m gonna do this,’ and you should stick to it.” – Erykah Badu
59. “If you invite negativity in, you have to feed it and hang out with it. Best not to invite it in.” – Erykah Badu
60. “What a frequency What a voice. I love Bilal. I couldn’t imagine a music world without his voice.” – Erykah Badu
61. “I just love expressing my joy and my mind through what I wear, or how I cook, or how I dance, or how I write or perform a song – how I move.” – Erykah Badu
62. “I’m a blues singer, so I just sing blues over different kinds of music.” – Erykah Badu
63. “It makes me feel good that I can sometimes be a person’s voice or sometimes be that relatable thing that helps them solve some problem or evolve or get angry or whatever they need to do.” – Erykah Badu
64. “I’m in training to become a midwife. I’m almost there and before I know it I’ll be able to open my own practice, if that’s what I desire.” – Erykah Badu
65. “The reason why you don’t see people looking like me is because I don’t encourage that. I encourage you to be you.” – Erykah Badu
66. “I don’t read music or anything, so when I produce, I go basically by ear.” – Erykah Badu
67. “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” – Erykah Badu
68. “I can be Erykah the human being more than the celebrity.” – Erykah Badu
69. “I come from a long line of matriarchal women, and my greatest teachers were my mothers.” – Erykah Badu
70. “My life is built around my children. They inspire me, motivate me, I enjoy being their mother, teacher, doctor, nutritionist. They know that wherever Mommy is, that is where home is.” – Erykah Badu
71. “We’re all friends, inside the music and outside the music. I mean, we don’t sound anything alike, we don’t approach our music anything alike, but we come from the same genuine place. We want our music to be real and we don’t want to compromise our art.” – Erykah Badu
72. “Wherever I am needed, that is where I want to be.” – Erykah Badu
73. “I think the job of an artist is to be honest and fearless.” – Erykah Badu
74. “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
75. “I could do a few more sit-ups and my waistline would be less difficult.” – Erykah Badu
76. “Music is part of the fabric of my skin, my life, it surrounds me everywhere.” – Erykah Badu
77. “Evolving requires elimination. You have to eliminate the things that no longer evolve you.” – Erykah Badu
78. “I’m a woman who has gone through many heartaches, enough to dedicate my whole life to trying to figure them out.” – Erykah Badu
79. “I’m kind of a recluse when it comes to going outside.” – Erykah Badu
80. “If you think about what a tribe-based community is, it’s people that eat the same foods and wear the same clothes. People in the tribe that I’m referring to kinda understand the same music sonically.” – Erykah Badu
81. “I know that I want to concentrate more on my inside-pretty than my outside-pretty, because thats gonna go away. But if your inside is beautiful, it never wears away. The light always shows on the outside if you are striving to be good inside.” – Erykah Badu
82. “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
83. “When I first came out as an artist in 97, I believe I was trying to achieve some kind of appreciation for African culture.” – Erykah Badu
84. “It’s just that little box in the middle of Fort Greene, Brooklyn. Most of the time I go I don’t even leave that apartment. I have just enough: a little bed, a little kitchen with two pots. I make some tea and I look out the window or just lay down.” – Erykah Badu
85. “I’m pretty mutable as a human being, period – if you put me on Pluto, I can figure it out.” – Erykah Badu
86. “The wise healer endures the pain. Cry. Tears bring joy.” – Erykah Badu
87. “I just keep going. When the water’s too still, I start splashing around and things jump out of the water.” – Erykah Badu
88. “All of my children are the same way I am. They’re little artists too, in their own ways.” – Erykah Badu
89. “Don’t let anybody infiltrate your dream” – Erykah Badu
90. “When people are going on to the next plateau of whatever this thing is called life, I also want them to breathe easily, even if it’s the last one they take here with us. I guess I’m the welcoming committee and ushering committee.” – Erykah Badu
91. “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
92. “I’m a recovering undercover over-lover.” – Erykah Badu
93. “I love putting the music together. It’s like art.” – Erykah Badu
94. “Hip-hop was created out of necessity. We needed to create some digitized things to help us understand what we were feeling.” – Erykah Badu
95. “We as Black people have to tell our own stories. We have to document our history. When we allow someone else to document our history the history becomes twisted and we get written out. We get our noses blown off.” – Erykah Badu
96. “We lock ourselves into our own philosophies, our own religions, our own walks of life, and if we fail, we condemn ourselves and then we get sick.” – Erykah Badu
97. “I’m only in competition with my last level.” – Erykah Badu
98. “He definitely does what a partner is supposed to do, that is, evolve you.” – Erykah Badu
99. “More than sounding alike, we feel alike and we share emotion and I have the ability to sing with emotion.” – Erykah Badu
100. “I figure, if the mind just ‘has’ to be busy,why not make up happy shit?” – Erykah Badu
101. “What opens my heart is when my son wakes me up in the morning, nudging me and saying, ‘Mommy, mommy!’” – Erykah Badu
102. “They play it safe, are quick to assassinate what they do not understand. They move in packs, ingesting more and more fear with every act of hate on one another.” – Erykah Badu
103. “In the morning, instead of saying to yourself, ‘I got to wake up’ say ‘I get to wake up!’” – Erykah Badu
104. “The heartbeat of my music became the bass line and the drums.” – Erykah Badu
105. “Some people come up and ask for an autograph and don’t even look at me. They’re like, ‘Here, do it.’ That don’t bother me, but it doesn’t open my heart.” – Erykah Badu
106. “Evolving is very important for me. That’s why I do it. I don’t do it to sell records or have a No. 1 Hot 99 single. It’s a movement for me.” – Erykah Badu
107. “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
108. “Art is the absence of fear.” – Erykah Badu
109. “What inspires me as a whole is following my heart, being honest is my only job. I never underestimate people’s ability to follow or deem my truth as being relative.” – Erykah Badu
110. “I’m a Pisces, so I’m a very closed-book kind of person.” – Erykah Badu
111. “Most intellects do not believe in God but they fear us just the same.” – Erykah Badu
112. “I grew up listening to old soul.” – Erykah Badu
113. “Whenever I think about funk music, it has a look – and that’s how it sounds.” – Erykah Badu