Erykah Badu Quotes

When Billie Holiday sings a song, I hear the song, but I always hear her and her truth.

I've always been very emotional when I sing.

When you sing opera you are very far from the people, you are onstage, and between you and the people there is the orchestra. So you have to launch your emotions very, very far. When you sing pop, you are singing very close - the microphone is very close to your mouth. You can whisper your emotions into the microphone.

Those old Appalachian singers use a falsetto sometimes. They can change their voices to sound high or low or really scratchy. When you're singing, usually you're trying to express some kind of pain or joy. I think that voice allows me to do a lot more of that.

Starting in music, where I get a chance to connect with the lyrics of a song, I learned so much about performing on stage and connecting to your audience and to what you're singing about. Singing is very emotional. Every song has its own purpose.

I listened to Billie Holiday a lot in order to learn to sing. She remains one of the extraordinary jazz singers. But my intent is to become my own voice, to be able to interpret these songs in my own way.

I had no desire to become a singer until I heard Billie Holiday. The first time I heard her on a record, it was a revelation. She sounded like a woman singing about herself.

Ever since I released my first album, I've tried not to use minor chords as the main element in songs. The way I sing is too melancholic.

Probably to me the greatest singer, female voice, is Billie Holiday. And one of the most moving for me, I don't know why - maybe it's nostalgia, maybe because my life is one of constant partying, whatever.

There is no singer I can think of who can touch Ella Fitzgerald. And when Billie Holiday sings, she's merciless about it. Her voice has just this immaculate sadness - even in happy songs, there was something that was so broken about it.

My vocal influences are a lot of jazz singers: Billie Holiday, Julie London, they had this tenderness to their voice.

Dianne Reeves, a famous jazz singer, would be my biggest influence.

If you look at the other singers of Billie Holiday's time, they were really trying to entertain. They were trying to make people feel good. They were singing fast - and she was singing the blues.

It is Billie Holiday who was, and still remains, the greatest single musical influence on me.

Patsy Cline? Larger than life! She taught me emotion: raw, sincere, unashamed.

I've dabbled in running around on stage, and at certain times it's nice to step away from the anchor of the piano and use a handheld microphone and connect with the audience, but I think my soul as a performer is just a little bit more connected to the instrument. To just sort of sit and sing - that feels like the most natural fit for me.

When I'm on stage, I turn into this rock person. I give everything I have. I sing with emotion, I'm loving it up there, and I think there's a lot of energy. In the same way that I'm open when I speak, I'm that open on stage. I feed off the energy of the audience too, so they're feeling what I'm feeling. And the set up is great - I have two drummers and a bass guy so it's just us four.

The point is that I am such a big fan of Puccini and that Butterfly is the most difficult and complete role that you can imagine. Just to sing it with a good voice is not enough: it asks tears from your soul. I am very emotional on stage, and the music is so tender that I suffer for real when I am singing it. So I cannot do many performances.

I'm an intense singer, so I look like I need the toilet every time I hit a high-note.

When I'm performing, sometimes a lyric will touch on my personal life, and it can be difficult to sing. For instance, when I sing 'How I Love You,' I'll choke up.

The B-52s, you know, our songs are about volcanoes or lobsters. Cindy and I sing them like our lives depend on them. I feel very emotional when I'm singing 'Rock Lobster,' but I've wanted to sing more about my personal experience.

The thing about Auto-Tune is it can't fix everyone. It only fixes pitch. Everything else - the emotion and the attack and the energy? That's what a singer is.

Singing involves a great deal of psychology.

It's a wonderful acting challenge to tell a story and convey emotion with only your voice.

I enjoy going on stage knowing that there's going to be that vulnerability and that transparency and hopefully things will be realized or accomplished or that confidence will be revealed. I think that's another element that people like about shows: in addition to hearing the songs that they love, I think there are some people who really get off on connecting with what's happening right now.