Quotes from Meshell Ndegeocello

I joke that a person of color would never make a movie like 'Midnight in Paris.' Nostalgia isn't so enticing.

Not to be a Bible-thumper, but there really is nothing new under the sun.

Music is my only guide. I don't care if people pigeonhole me. Miles Davis is my hero. He covered Cindy Lauper and Michael Jackson, and he didn't give a hoot about what the purists said.

Music is like a lover that I can't commit to, but I seem to always find myself in bed with.

Madonna is interesting. She changed music. She definitely did. She gave me an opportunity that no one else would give me, so I am very grateful to her.

It's interesting to do other people's music - that's how I learned to play, by learning other people's songs. It's nice to delve into how other people got to where they are.

I tried to be as positive as possible, because I have the same birthday as Michael Jackson. He is my cosmic brother. I love him.

God looks out for fools and babies.

Once you encounter people who are really testing the limits of kindness, that's when you start to build up a shield and close yourself down.

I'm becoming more and more apolitical - I think the most revolutionary thing you can do is just live your life and have a good time. Before they scoop you up on the street or you die.

Definitely dub is in my body forever. I think I hear everything through a dub filter. Even when I play rock music, I play through a dub filter.

My father was a jazz tenor sax player. He played in a lot of big bands. So I had that sound around me all the time. The first record that really caught my ear was Clifford Brown's 'Brownie Eyes.' I grew up listening to John Coltrane and Illinois Jacquet. This is where I come from... I love improvisational music.

I think leaders are incapable of the strength that passive resistance entails.

My greatest influence is Jimi Hendrix, and if he's been reincarnated, or if he's looking down, sideways, or looking up, I just wanted to tell him that I love him and thank him for opening doors for me. I just wanted to make it beautiful for him.

Children are born with their own optimism. They have a clarity and a simplicity that we can only wish for.

You make a choice to make music or be an actor, and people automatically think they can have access to your life.

Our leaders and Osama Bin Laden all claim to do the right thing in the name of God. I question that. I wonder if that God is worth the life of another human-being.

I'm a true believer that unless you're Prince or Stevie Wonder - and even Prince is showing that he needs help - not everybody can produce themselves. I'm definitely not that person.

I think secretly I've realized after my time on the planet that I have no control over what people feel about me or need from me, so I just have a more laid-back approach in my apologies.

I'm pushing ahead on my own - you no longer need a large record company to make you a star.

Any ideas of 'other' are complicated, and otherness is relative to personal ideas of 'normal.'

I find myself wanting to make music at the dining room table or in the bedroom - I'm kind of a mobile writer, so I sort of move around the house. But the attic is definitely where I can make the most noise. While everyone on the lower floors screams 'Earthquake!' But no! It's just my bass!

There's no hierarchy in suffering. I think songs that are transcendent are the ones where everyone can feel something from it, you know?

I just try to tell a story with a song, and be able to try to transmit the emotion to you. That's all I'm really trying to do.