Quotes from Dawn Richard

Just as much as you need the people who love you, you need the people who doubt you - to prove them wrong.

You have to put time into the art to do it, and you have to know that what you'll get out of it is not a financial or a fame thing. It'll just be the pleasure of being an artist. And I'm cool with that.

It doesn't bother me when I'm labeled, but it's so... limiting. It's so boxy.

I want to show that you can be just as amazing as labels and compete as a business and work as a business even though you're an artist.

Besides music, I was all school, school, school. And softball. I played the game since I was four, and I wanted to go to the Olympics for softball. I got a full scholarship through softball.

I'd only do a deal with a label if it allowed me to still be indie and have that indie mentality. I have to have creative control.

I come from an era where lyrics were full of imagery and metaphor, and that's all I know. I think people miss that.

'Redemption' sounds like a jubilee. Like a second line, if you will.

Be exactly who you are. You can fit in any space you see yourself in. Be fearless.

I did write more mainstream stuff with DK. But you could always tell the records that I wrote in contrast with everybody else's because the format was a bit different. The harmonies were used in a different type of way. Way more metaphors in the mix.

My director, Monty Marsh, is really awesome - I've been working with him for years now.

I love what a women embodies. I love our bodies; I love the way we communicate with our bodies. I love the way dance creates movement. It's art in motion.

When my dad went to college to get his master's from Loyola, he was playing Debussy and Chopin and Beethoven. But he played all that New Orleans stuff, too. I would go with my dad to gigs, pick up the piano and the speakers, and I would be like his roadie.

I really got back to my New Orleans roots - my grandfather played with Fats Domino. We had to leave after Katrina, but I feel like, spiritually, I'm back there.

I've grown so much in the music industry. From 'GoldenHeart,' it was just about me and the music and me in this dream. With 'BlackHeart,' its more about me and who I am and what role I play in my own life and in the business.

When I look half naked on stage, it's not because I'm trying to be sexy but because I am dancing and want to be mobile enough to move.

My uncle is in the hall of fame for creating by hand some of the most intricate Indian Mardi Gras garb.

There's always going to be a fight between mainstream and underground because the mainstream is a very small bubble, and the underground scene is a very small bubble, and they both see themselves as secret societies. But I never saw it that way. I always thought music was open to all things.

Growing up, my parents were Roman Catholic - strict Catholics - from New Orleans. I understood the idea in the principle of spirituality. I noticed it in the stories that I read. The Trinity was something that was brought up consistently: the power of three. Things happened in threes, and I thought that was brilliant.

I watched my parents lose everything, from a house to birth certificates. We were homeless for about six months, then we stayed in Baltimore, and my parents got jobs.

I'm okay with being the oddball.

You don't need validation from other people. You've gotta find it within yourself and sit in it and roll with it.

Music and dance is part of everything in New Orleans. So I grew up appreciating it all.

I'm big on showing people versatility. I'm constantly trying to push myself to break barriers and the idea that we have to stay in one lane.