Quotes from Bibi Bourelly

I want my brand and Bibi Bourelly to represent honesty.

Sometimes I hate writing songs. Because it hurts sometimes. I'm very emotional.

I write songs every day, 14 times a day.

My dad is Jean-Paul Bourelly, a really prestige guitar player in Europe, and he toured with Miles Davis. I was always surrounded by the most prestige kind of musicians from Senegal, Trinidad, Poland, Nigeria, and all around the world.

My talent before singing is being able to interpret and understand my emotions. I've felt pain and felt it intensely, so every time I sing, I revisit it.

'Sally' is just a song that I wrote talking to my alter ego. When I write, I don't really consciously say, 'This is what I've been going through in my life, and I'm gonna put this into words.' It's just a song that I kinda went in and did. Then, listening back to it, I realized, 'I'm talking to myself.'

There's so much judgment geared toward young girls. People just expect so much from girls. Even physically and aesthetically, people expect us to always look right, to have a certain etiquette - to talk a certain way and act a certain way - and to know certain things. It's all different expectations, but there are always expectations.

My dad raised me on everything from his music to Stevie Wonder to A Tribe Called Quest. I learned the 'Midnight Marauders' album in and out.

School, for me, was a really, genuinely hard thing. It was hard because l am an artist. You can't send an artist to a place where we learn at a mad slow pace sitting in a class.

Before I was working professionally, I would do YouTube covers. But as a creative person, it was really hard for me when I wasn't releasing my own music. That felt unnatural to me.

I started writing songs before I could talk - at three or four. It was in me, and I had to get it out. It was all freestyle, which is how I write anyway. I don't write the words down; I scat and come up with the melody, then the lyrics.

I believe that I exist for the people. I'm just here to try to make a difference, and hopefully, the people listen and trust me enough to contribute.

I was never necessarily conscious of my failures when I attempted something and it didn't work out, because I feel like I'm so in tune with my purpose I never necessarily acknowledge that.

As far as songwriting, I'm not sure if they wrote all of their own stuff, but I love the Dixie Chicks.

The music industry is hard work, especially for women. A lot of people pit us against each other, comparing two body types or two women that are completely different. It's a lot of pressure.

All of my songwriting success happened within a four month time span, and my record label deal happened within the next three months.

I remember the first time I ever wrote down a song was when I was 6. I was at my friend Emma's house, and we wrote a song called 'Girls' Rules.'

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

I was born in Berlin, and when I was 6, my mom passed. When I was 9, I moved to near Washington, D.C., where I lived with my aunt and uncle. And then at 11, I moved back to Berlin. And then at 16, I got in trouble in school and moved back to the Washington area.

Daring is doing. Daring is asking something outrageous despite your chances of failure and rejection. Daring is going out on a limb by believing in something that no one else understands, and if all fails, daring is trying again.

Fortunately and unfortunately, what I love entails, and makes, a lot of money.

I love making music. I love that it's unstructured, that I get to go perform and play in front of people, to meet new people. I love to do the thing I'm best at every day.

I just want to unify people. A crowd full of people singing one song... that doesn't derive from anything dishonest... It's someone's truth.

I want music to really unite people, more than the way a pop single unites people. I want to unite people through their pain and really change mentalities, change minds, and change perspectives.