Quotes About Artistry

Every single place that's brushed upon me has made me the artist that I am - from Nigerian Highlife music and the vocal melodies that I grew up on when I would be sitting with my father and his fellow chiefs, to the funk and freeness of the Bay Area groove, to L.A.'s smooth G-funk legacy, Brooklyn's lyricism, and now Atlanta's trap history.

'Crash' is the hardest song I've ever sang in my whole life. It's the lowest in my vocal register and the highest in my register, all within 15 seconds.

I think one of the biggest sleepers that people are going to be able to dig into later is 'Fermi Paradox,' it's the song before 'Exist.' To me it's got the coolest, it's just so bizarre because it's got one of the most melodic vocal melodies, but we put it over a black metal blast beats.

I always start with writing vocal melodies before writing lyrics.

Because I write the music, I write the lyrics, I write the vocal melody lines - I write everything. Just because I let somebody sing something doesn't mean they're more important than the bass player or the keyboard player or the drummer.

I like Brandy a lot. She's a vocal prodigy.

It's quite different to do a vocal performance, opposed to a performance where you are seen, because in some ways, you don't need to worry about what you look like - you don't have to sit in a makeup chair for a long time!

David Bowie has always been my vocal inspiration ever since I was a child.

I always felt each instrumental and vocal inflection had to be special... I'd spend almost as much time on those as I'd spend on the song itself.

Usually what I do is I write my vocal melody over guitar parts and then I come up with lyrics.

I never start a song at the beginning; I always start in the middle, working with the original concept. That might be a loop or a vocal hook. A weird noise or a string sample. Once that's at the heart of the song, I work concertina-fashion, expanding the song forwards to the end and backwards to the beginning.

Ultimately, I'd say a lot of my vocal influences are jazz-based, people like Ella Fitzgerald, or Fred Astaire.

Because I'm a Christian, when I write things are going to have a certain flavor. When you're writing songs you try to be careful. You make sure there are no conflicts with what you believe, especially when you've been real vocal about being a Christian.

A lot of people with a range of styles and vocal tones make all kinds of music for all sorts of audiences. I'll be forever grateful for that.

The music I want to hear in my head sounds somewhere between Jimi Hendrix and Massive Attack. It's not really like my dad, but there will always be similarities because we have the same vocal cords, and I learnt the guitar the way he taught me.

I'm not the type of woman who shows off my body; I'm a vocalist and I'm a writer and I think people see that more so than they see anything else. That's just who I am.

Van Morrison is probably, at this point in time, my biggest influence as a vocalist. When we were making our last album I had a vinyl copy of 'Veedon Fleece' in the vocal booth in front of me, in the dorky sense. I think there were candles around, which is really tacky, but hey, I needed to channel Van the Man!

One of my biggest musical influences is definitely Ella Fitzgerald as a vocalist.

In any event, I'm proud to wear the badge of jazz vocalist if that's what people want to call me; but at the same time, there are many other things I like to do.

I've certainly developed as a vocalist. I find my early recordings very difficult to listen to.

With 'A Million Miles,' I still was proving myself as a writer and as a vocalist. It gave me the platform to tour again.

Often, when I work with a vocalist, I like to focus on the melodies first.

I hate that when you introduce yourself, and you're a rapper, sometimes you gotta say, 'I'm a musician.' Or, 'I'm an artist.' 'I'm a recording artist.' 'I'm a vocalist.'

I make records from top to bottom. Bring the best out of the vocalist. I deal with live instrumentation on all our records.