Quotes from Yuna

I wasn't trained to be in front of a camera, so there were a lot of challenges at first. But I didn't want to be fake.

'Material' is meant to be a fun, lighthearted song about the tiny bit of materialism that's in all of us. The message is meant to translate the notion that you don't need luxury items to feel special; you already are special.

I love Feist. I love Francoise Hardy. She was a French singer-songwriter in the '60s who was pretty huge. I think I'm drawn to her sincerity. I love Fiona Apple, too - she's quirky and really honest in her lyrics.

You learn so much about yourself as an artist. I never would have thought that I could sing every night, you know? Travel and perform every single night, and travel to another city the next day and do it all over again? You learn a lot of new things about yourself, and you make a lot of connections with people.

Embrace the color of your skin and your own beauty.

I love traveling. I've been doing it since I was 16.

Whenever I write a new song, it always happens when I come back from Europe or Egypt or something like that. It's always from travelling.

The fashion world is so interesting because it's always changing, but if you know yourself really well, despite of all the changes in the fashion trends, you know how to stay true to yourself.

The working environment in L.A. is really refreshing, really good. Because in Malaysia, it's a small country - you end up working with the same people that you like and that you know.

Racism is everywhere - the older generations in Malaysia still say things like, 'She's darker-skinned; maybe don't marry her,' and it's very judgmental. A lot of girls do try to get fairness cream to lighten their skin, and I'm against all of that.

I didn't take music seriously in the beginning. It just kind of a hobby to me. It was something that I love doing for fun.

Lupe Fiasco is kinda cool. I like him a lot.

When I was younger I would go to the airport with my friends and drive out 2 A.M., 3 A.M. in the morning and just hang out until sunrise watching planes fly in and fly out. Just sit there and dream about how, one day, that's going to be us in those flights. We're gonna be one of those people with places to go.

I think you can soften people's hearts, even if they have a lot of hate. Music can do that if it's beautiful and honest. If I can do that - soften just one person's heart - I consider myself successful already.

I come from a jazzy, acoustic, folky background. Everything has to work with melodies; the words have to have meaning.

A lot of people think that because I'm from Malaysia, I'm driven by Malaysian sound, but actually, it's mostly just my melodies.

Whenever I Google for clothes, I always look at what Angelina Jolie is wearing. I love Sienna Miller, and I really like Rihanna's style, too. There's the edgy girl, classy girl, and the Bohemian chic girl. I guess I'm all of that combined into one.

My style is all I have. When I go on stage, that's me in my comfort zone. It's not a costume. It's just me. And I want every woman to feel that way.

I started singing very early. I was six or seven years old, and I was singing along to TV commercials and figuring out, 'Oh, hey, I can sing in tune. This is really cool.' But the songwriting thing came much much later, when I was 19 years old.

In my final year of law school, everything became real. Malaysian TV shows wanted me to perform big concerts. So, after graduating, I decided to go for it. I didn't think I'd be a good lawyer anyway.

I think, from the very beginning, I always knew that I needed to get out of Malaysia and do my thing somewhere else.

Sometimes when you're a songwriter, you kind of have this egotistic thing: you just want to write something that you love, and you don't care about if people like it or not, but personally, I want to write something that people can jive to.

I just realized the best way to live your life is to just be you, as cliche as it sounds. I grew up trying to please everyone.

I came from a strong jazz/ singer-songwriter/folk influence, but in L.A., I learned how to have a balance between all these genres and R&B music and hip-hop, mixing them all together.