Rozonda Thomas Quotes

Painting is self-discovery. Every good artist paints what he is.

I'm not just painting for painting's sake. I want to be truthful.

In L.A., I did a lot of vintage flea market dresses and Doc Martens.

It's good to be employable, but I hope to show the truth. The paintings seem true because nobody wants me to do them.

My voice isn't an instrument I can just hang up on a hook.

Making something good and saying something brilliant are not two things. When you make your own statement, there is a higher energy level, and you do better painting.

I like doing stuff like, for instance, in the 'Leave the Night On' video, I had on a plain white T-shirt. I just wanted to do something to it to make it a little different, so I just cut a big strip out of the side, from the shirttail up to my armpit, and cut a big red strip out of another T-shirt and just sewed it in there.

Relevance, for me, is about being creative and doing things that you believe in, whether that's music or acting or painting a picture, or whatever that is.

Express yourself in any way possible.

I'd worn Joe's Jeans since I was young, so it was cool to be able to reinvent the brand and be able to be part of it.

Of course, I write. I have stories to tell. But I don't want to do superficial stuff any more.

My job is to express myself.

I think that's always the hope - I mean, I can't speak for others, but I think other artists, no matter what type of medium they are using - whether it be from painting to acting to dancing, songwriting, or anything like that - I believe the desire is to get to the truth, and I think it's really hard to tell the truth.

I like the music that I sing, cos I, like, feel it more.

In L.A., retro culture is just part of the thing you do. When we were kids, we didn't have allowances, and it was not cool to wear designer clothes. So it meant that we were into 1920s dresses when we were 13.

We started making content because we wanted to see it, and so our content ended up being genuine.

The music is the thing. I am not writing for critics; I don't want to become a personality.

You're creating ' it comes from the heart, the spirit, the soul. You're not manufacturing somebody else's plan, somebody else's blueprint, somebody else's idea that's not yours. So when you're creating, that's the beauty side of art, you know? It comes from within you.

I had a passion and a soul in me that was screaming to be heard, and I had to let them out in as honest and challenging a way as I could.

I love creating things that come from my gut and my soul.

Music should not be a contest, it should be an individual thing that each band is putting out from within themselves.

Fashion is definitely important. It's like peanut butter and jelly with hiphop music, you know what I'm saying? So, it's a part of you, a part of yourself as a person.

Writing has never been an intentional endeavor to me. I know a lot of people have experiences and then sit down and try to sort them out through song, but whenever I sit down to write, it comes out hackneyed or overly saccharine.

Country's more than about what the music sounds like. It's what you're saying and who you are as a person.

I've always loved rummaging through my mum's wardrobe and finding classic pieces. I went through a phase where I rejected anything that was vaguely up-styled in any way and I just lived in a baggy jumper for a bit.