A Quote by Aldous Harding
If people say to me, 'So, what were you doing in Dubai in that song?' or they spend ages comparing me to some other singer, I just shut down, I guess.
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I don't know why people call me a jazz singer, though I guess people associate me with jazz because I was raised in it, from way back. I'm not putting jazz down, but I'm not a jazz singer...I've recorded all kinds of music, but (to them) I'm either a jazz singer or a blues singer. I can't sing a blues – just a right-out blues – but I can put the blues in whatever I sing. I might sing 'Send In the Clowns' and I might stick a little bluesy part in it, or any song. What I want to do, music-wise, is all kinds of music that I like, and I like all kinds of music.
When the time came to say, "Mom, I want to do this as a job," it was brutal. She was really against it. There were screaming matches. Some people are shut down by that and get defeated by it, and other people are empowered by the negativity. My father kind of encouraged me through that.
Earlier in my career I just thought "I'm not very confident, I don't like singing to people." But people had some faith in me, and here we are. Sometimes I think "Oh maybe I should just be a backing singer." But I've got an amazing team of people who tell me to shut up when I'm like "Oh god, I can't do it." But now, I can't really imagine it being the other way.
One of the things that I've worked my way out of doing, and I knew that I needed to, was comparing myself to other people. That just poisins everything. It all of a sudden dtermines even clothes you're going to choose to wear that day or what you're going to do with a music production or how you're going to sequence it. It poisinseverything. Your real job in the world is to be you. Comparing yourself to other people I think that hurt me more than anything. Allowing myself to go there so much in my head hurt me.
People tell me ridiculous things and then say they're joking. Like, at the Dubai immigration, the officer told me that I've been banned from Dubai. I almost started crying which is when he said that he was joking!
Some people say I'm conscious, some say I'm a gangsta rapper - it's just me doing me. I'm stomping in my own lane. I'm doing what I do.
I guess I don't really know any other way to do it, it just feels like the natural way to do things for me. Like - if I'm writing a song - it has to have some sort of value. Or it only has some kind of value to me, if it's something really personal. It has to mean something to me. I guess it is a little uncomfortable, or it's a little embarrassing sometimes, to know that stuff that honest is out there. But, when I hand off the thing, when it's totally done and mastered and sent, I kinda feel like it doesn't belong to me anymore.
I think people need comparisons to grade a singer... so if they are comparing me to the biggest singer of India... I am sure I am on the right path.
What shocked me, and what I wasn't prepared for, was just how brutal and how unethical some people can be in the NFL. I mean, there were some great people, but there were some real snakes, too. I was like, 'Holy cow!' But it made me a better person, and it got me ready for other things.
The people of Mississippi can't just go home, shut down their small business, shut down their restaurants, shut down their gyms... and just think that you can come back six weeks from now, flip a switch and everything's gonna be fine. That's not the way the economy works.
Singing a song like 'Your Love Is Killing Me,' people are worried about me. My mother called me, like, 'What's going on with you? Are you alright? I thought you were doing fine.' And I'm like, 'I am doing fine. It's just, this is what I do.'
It feels good. Kinda like when you have to shut your computer down, just sometimes when it goes crazy, you just shut it down and when you turn it on, it's okay again. That's what meditation is to me.
The comics that are just conversing with you up there and drawing on their own life, yeah, I guess so. I guess some do political humor, some do topical humor, but the ones that I like, the ones that are appealing to me, were guys who were just talking to you about their life.
I don't sit down to write a song; they just come to me from something that somebody says, or something in the news. The punchline comes to me, and I go over it in my head and get the song form. I hadn't been doing that a lot.
When Kate Spade New York told me that we would be going to Dubai to celebrate the opening of two stores there, I was so thrilled - Dubai has been a place that I have wanted to visit for quite some time. There was something mysterious about Dubai that I wanted to see for myself so I could draw my own conclusions.
I guess my main worry is that people will start hating what I hate about myself. I worry that everyone will think I am really annoying and just want me to shut up. Which would make so much sense because I annoy myself... I guess I want people to know that if they are annoyed with me, I get it, it's totally cool. Please forgive me.
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