Top 86 Quotes & Sayings by Dawn Richard - Page 2

I connect so much with Peter Gabriel's sound because, to me, he always had that South African vibe. His drums were always something to move to: it was almost like Calypso. I'm a big fan.

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

I got in the audition line called 'Making the Band' because I wanted to be in a band. If I didn't, I would have done 'American Idol.'

When I was growing up, there was no one. There were very few black women in tech; there were very few black women in the fashion game. We didn't have our Grace Jones - Grace Jones was before my time. We didn't really have a lot of black women in electronic and punk who were celebrated in the same levels as, say, your big mega-superstars.

It's always interesting when you're doing things yourself - getting the lighting, getting everybody together. It's exciting.

'Blackheart' was the moment for me to really open up and let people into the world that is me.

I had no idea that what I thought was my low wasn't really my low. That's what a lot of people think - then life reminds them, 'No, there's lower.'

When you see what you really are, good or bad, there is a fearlessness to understanding your purpose.

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.

How many people can say they had Anna Wintour on a record? Not even an album, just a mixtape? It's audacious, disrespectful, and I feel like it's a little bit raw, and that's what Dirty Money is.

There's definitely that tribal Africana thing going on in my sound. It's that marching band, second-line music, that Creole-influence in the kick, and the snare that drives everything for me. I think it's really what's separated my sound from a lot of the R&B and pop music out there.

I don't wish homelessness on anyone, especially when you come from where your parents work hard.

There's a fine line between artist and product. I don't think the industry purposely does it, but I think that's just the way they maneuver. You have to be careful that doesn't become your story, where you become a product, and your art is tarnished because you're just seen as a tool to make money.

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

The problem with Danity Kane is everybody wanted to play everybody's role, and when you're in a group like that, that can't survive.

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

When I was 4, I had a schedule. I was playing softball. My brother was playing football. My parents were teachers, and they'd owned businesses. We like to work hard. Work and then books. Books and then work. We just knew that we had to excel. It sounds militant, but trust me, it was fun.

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 lived in the library with my grandmother as a child. I still love the smell of books; the library card is still my friend.

R&B needs to see a new light. It doesn't have to be pigeonholed.

You don't know how far you can go until you push it.

I'm not a very open person.

A lot of 'Blackheart' was me, literally in a dark room, confessing my sins; Poe was the influence for that album. But that melancholy has a hopefulness - in every Poe story, there is always a moral at the end.

Everyone who knows Puff knows Puff rolls with himself. His hustle is money. That's what he does.

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