Quotes About Artistry

When I hear the songs 'Dangerous' or 'End of My World', I go, 'Wow, I didn't even know I could go that low!' And when I played them for my family, they said, 'That doesn't even sound like you.'

When you sit down and see someone play at a piano, you don't think, 'Wow - what a fantastic machine.'

I remember, when I saw the movie of 'Cabaret,' I was amazed by Liza Minnelli: like, 'Wow, that kind of looks like someone I could be similar to.'

There is something to be said for one vision and following one vision through. I do think it's something TV will catch up to at some point and realize, 'Wow, we're in the Golden Age of Television right now; we've taken television to another level, but now let's take it to an even higher level where it is one vision throughout a whole season.'

You know in acting you have those moments in a movie where a character yells or breaks down crying and you're like, wow, that's acting?

Definitely, some of the artistry and poetry has been lost in modern chess. It's very rare that I play a game where I'm like, 'Wow, this is really interesting. There were so many possibilities! It was such a rich game.'

As Erykah Badu, it has nothing to do with me, the way I look, my hair wrap, my style, it's about you and what you feel for my music. If I can make you feel like the way that people who influenced me made me feel, that's completion.

You could make the most beautiful film, and that weekend it's raining too hard on the East Coast, and no one goes out. Artists should have a chance to do it again. That's the challenge: Women artists don't get a second chance. People-of-color artists don't get a second chance. You're put in director's jail, and that's a wrap.

The weird thing is that 'Maestro' has somehow improved my DJing. When you've been in this music as long as I've been, you can sometimes become jaded. And when I got back from 'Maestro,' I realised the music is being kept in time for me - all I have to do is to wrap as much dynamic around it as I can. DJs don't realise how lucky we are.

Even when I wrap my work and come home or whatever it is I try to do, I can identify with that feeling of being a little outside, of struggling to get back into normality.

It's not so uncommon for me to get so wrapped up in a song that I cry several times when I sing them. That's the difference between my music and some of the other folks.

To me, a lot people really get wrapped up in the technical side of metal and what's metal and what's not and more double-kick and more blast beats and more technicality, but for me, I'm a song person. So I think you can write good songs in any type of style of rock and any type of style of metal, and that's kind of what I'm a fan of.

What does it mean to a person whose identity is very wrapped up in the music she makes, if her worth is measured by how many records she sells?

When I first started making music, I was pretty drawn to hip-hop beats wrapped together with super-good lyrics. The most important thing in that is wordplay, so that stayed with me when I started writing songs.

It's always hard for me to put the pieces together when listening to a finished album that I was a part of writing and playing. There are so many memories wrapped up in each note and each song that it's hard not to constantly flash back to what made that musical event happen while listening.

What I like most about directing is creating a world more so than anything. To me, the music is the wrapping paper on that world.

When you think about 'The Grapes of Wrath,' it's an American masterpiece, and a very long process goes into the making of such a book.

I'm attracted to creative people and train wrecks, and there's no shortage of that in Los Angeles.

I did get in a car wreck, but we got a good song out of it.

I often wrangle with myself as an actor, and wrestle with the process. In striving for authenticity I often have the feeling I am falling short.

In terms of smaller changes over time, I think good plays are like poems. Every syllable counts. So I wrestle with word choice, rhythm in final drafts.

A live performance is the same no matter what genre it is. Wrestling, rock 'n roll, hosting, acting - it's the same thing.

I've been wrestling and making music for a long time.

My mind thinks in wrestling. As I'm thinking of things and my mind is being creative, it constantly keeps going back to wrestling. That's my inspiration, and to not be able to express that puts me in a spot where I almost don't know what to do with myself.