Quotes from Corinne Bailey Rae

With music I feel like it's the one time when I don't have to think and I don't have to contrive anything.

I think a lot of style is about attitude - posture, deportment, gaze and confidence. I saw that in my mum. She was a cleaner when we were growing up, but she had this stylish presence I admired.

I find this western idea that ageing is wrong really distasteful. You should be happy that you look 50, you look 60, you've got to 70 - it should be an achievement.

My whole vibe is not really fronty and aggressive and blingy.

My dad hates reggae. He's from St. Kitts, which is a really British island, with Victorian values. He doesn't have a strong Caribbean accent. He didn't play Caribbean music in the house. He was really into soul music, collecting soul 45s.

I feel like it's me singing back to myself as a younger person and saying have confidence in being a bit different.

My parents got divorced for the same reason that most people's parents get divorced: the relationship had stopped working. I was about 12 or 13.

I don't buy loads of clothing. But I do have a lot of vintage dresses and '80s one-pieces, which are quite fun.

My mum would take us to ballet, and we used to go as a family to Brownies. My dad used to take us to Saturday music school. My parents would never say: 'Oh, you've got to practice your violin now before tea.' We were self-motivated.

I rode my bike to school, I was the head girl, I played the violin, was really nerdy. I was really underweight, so I was really skinny and under-confident. But I had Doc Marten boots! So I was a bit of an outsider. And clever as well.

Even right in the middle of the worst times, I remember thinking that I would choose this exact life again, that I would do it all again.