Quotes from Goapele

In high school, I started training, singing with choirs, and getting voice lessons and doing a lot of creative writing and decided that that's really what I wanted to pursue as a career, and that's what I was going to study.

Whenever I have short ,it's important for me to be inspired by people with short hair.

I wash and moisturize my face in the morning and at night. If I have a show, I may even wash before and after the show. I never go to sleep with makeup on my face. At the minimum, I'm at least going to use makeup wipes to take my makeup off.

It's always liberating to feel like I'm changing my hair and know that my fans are supporting that. I like to feel like I'm really expressing myself, and when people embrace it, it feels like an authentic connection.

Women, goals, empowerment, well-being, and women's health has always been important to me.

I want to create a different kind of legacy.

I enjoy being able to do different kinds of music, not just to be eclectic but because those are all a part of me.

Africa doesn't look like it's changed that much to me since I first went in '94. There is still a major economic divide, but the rights of Africans have changed and progressed.

My hair story has been unique because my mom's a German Jew, so her hair is way different than my hair. She was always learning on my hair growing up, but I would sit there for hours, and she did learn how to braid hair. Early on, it was a lot of tears while my mom was braiding my hair.

I'd been doing shows, but I slowed down because I had a daughter and got to spend some time having more of a family life.

I understand it for marketing purposes, but I've always hated defining myself with a genre. Nothing feels broad enough.

I'm thankful that my daughter's father has allowed me to do what I do because that really makes a difference. I do believe a woman can have it all.

There were a lot of anti-apartheid rallies and marches and concerts that we would go to as a family. And music was a big part of that. It was never just the politics.

I think glass has so many different forms. Sometimes it comes off as something so breakable and fragile, but it's amazingly strong. It starts as sand, and it takes on different lives, but it is breakable.

There are a lot of classic Goapele tracks that are obviously me. And I'm also just trying to keep evolving and grow as an artist. I've always had a wish list of producers I wanted to work with. I just wait until the feeling is mutual and go into the studio to see what we can come up with.

I wanted it to be back to a state where it felt like it was thriving, so I think that my hair's happiest natural, and there's that hairstyle for everyone where you feel like, 'My hair is agreeing with this,' so I just cut it off recently again, and I'm going back natural.

I don't wear that much makeup. I'll do a little concealer here and there and apply some mascara. It just depends on how I'm feeling that day, but I try and go days without makeup just because I think it's healthier for skin to breathe.

I think police brutality has been going on since - I don't know - ever since I can remember and, you know, hearing about it in my childhood.

I believe in reflecting honesty and reflecting reality in my music and making music that touches people emotionally - music that can bring us together.

Even if a song has shallow lyrics, there's something that you feel, regardless of what their lyrics are.

As I get older, my perspective changes, and I just see how relationships aren't always what they appear to be. It's one of those sad but true things. We can see sometimes when people are becoming distant in all the things that create breaking apart, as painful as it is, and at the same time, still appreciating that person.

Overall, I just wanted to release music that would take people through life's different emotions.

I did a track with Khao, out of Atlanta, who's worked with T.I. Did a track with Maylay, who did a lot with John Legend's album. I got in the studio with Kanye West; we did a song. The dedication for the career takes a lot of work, but if you love it, it's worth it.

I'm extremely proud I was born and raised in the Bay Area and loved representing Oakland. I started recording in the Bay Area and worked with a lot of different producers. But I always wanted to collaborate with different writers and get different perspectives.