Kehlani Quotes

I've got my own studio, so I sit in my studio writing and if I get a great take, that's the take.

When I'm making a song that's very Grimes, it just feels very insular and it feels weird to have someone else do something on it.

People still kind of think of me as like a folk artist, but on the first record, I truly was deferring to other people to produce me.

For me, I work very self-contained. It's literally just me sitting in a room doing it until the very end of the process when other musicians come in and instruments are recorded.

I've had offers to sign a record deal, but the people I've talked to have wanted to package me and have me meet with songwriters who've written stuff for Whitney Houston, that sort of thing. That's not at all my style.

I have a very solo career. I only write with people that I really adore.

There hasn't been one moment in my career where I felt I didn't have any control over the creative aspects of my records.

I play keyboards and sing. I've written a couple of songs too.

I have to be involved. Whether it's me writing by myself or with other people, I definitely want to have my hand in the creative process. That's part of why I got into music in the first place.

I heard some stuff recently from Julian Casablancas, and his solo stuff is amazing. If I could write with anyone, it would be him.

I thought I'd do everything on four-track, and then I'll record every instrument myself in a studio, and then I'll have a solo album released by spring.

I create my own lyrics. I have a great band. I have a drummer from East Berlin.

I've got more creative control when I do music.

I'm not interested so much in collaboration. You see that from the history of my albums.

Nothing on 'Relapse' and very little on 'Recovery' was produced by me.

You can either make it come around or you can't. By the time we would be ready to record a song, we would know for sure that it was the best way we could do it.

My second record I used a producer, which was frustrating in a way, because I think a lot of the punky spirit and provocative nature of the lyrics didn't come across - the music was pretty.

I wrote 'Actor' all on the computer. I didn't touch any instruments until I was in the studio. So while I had all these ornate arrangements, I didn't have any songs.

I'm never too ambitious when I go into the studio. I always know that I'm just going into the studio to work on or try to develop an idea that I have for a song.

I like to oversee what I do, so I have a hand in writing my songs. I also have people there to help me with my vision.

I sit and write songs alone and then get together with people to help me flesh it out into a recording.

When I want to put out an album, I want to write it. I want to be able to say that I wrote my album, and all this stuff is from me.

I like collaboration because, first of all, I'm good at writing lyrics. I don't know how to make beats. I don't play instruments. I'm not a good singer. So even when you see a solo album of mine, it's still a collaboration.

I started to work up in my old bedroom, playing, writing songs, and it somehow came to me that I could introduce soul music. Nobody seemed to be doing that.

Writing by myself, I spread that out more. I'll spend more time on a song then. I'm more critical about it, because there's no one else in the room to tell me, 'That's really not translating. I'm not getting what you're saying.' So, I'm constantly rewriting it, thinking, 'No, that's fine,' and going back.