A Quote by India Arie
Nobody looked like me when I was growing up. None of the kids were as big as me, or as serious as me, or listened to the same music.
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Growing up, I listened and was influenced by a lot of those around me. I have a big family, and my dad listened to '80s music, my mom listened to Motown, my brother listened to reggae, and my granddad was the one that got me into jazz and swing music.
I definitely felt growing up that I wasn't seen as the same as anyone around me because no one around me looked like me. There were no black Scottish role models.
Several people inspired me like Lil' Wayne, Juvenile, the whole Cash Money camp, the No Limit camp, DMX, Jay-Z, Eminem, LL Cool J, I listened to all type of sh*t. I listened to R&B like Teena Marie, just good music - anybody that made good music. When I was growing up out west I listened to Twista, Do or Die, and Crucial Conflict. They were the "it" artists in Chicago. I wanted to be like them on TV and all of that so that's how it all started.
Growing up, there was nobody in TV or radio that looked like me - that sounded like me.
I feel like kids that grew up in New York City or in L.A. were exposed to all these subcultures and subgenres, whereas I was only exposed to the poppiest of pop music so I never had this negative connotation towards pop music. That's not South African music having an effect on me, but just how international music was filtered through South Africa affected me. It gave me a not-negative connotation towards pop music growing up.
I grew up playing with kids who were the kids of people my parents grew up playing with, and they know me like nobody else. I thought everybody was that way when I was growing up, and then I left to go to college, and I realised that the world is full of strangers.
All the music I listened to in high school that I loved and that moved me wasn't the same music other kids were listening to in school. I got into punk rock and new wave, then dub and hip-hop.
Music as background to me becomes like a mosquito, an insect. In the studio we have big speakers, and to me that's the way music should be listened to. When I listen to music, I want to just listen to music.
Growing up in Iowa, there weren't many people who looked like me. And then when I moved out to L.A., every guy in comedy looked like me.
Then your fingers moved down to my chin. You pushed it up with your thumb to look at me, almost like you were studying me in the artificial lights above my head. And, I mean, you really looked at me … with eyes like two stars. [...] And I had wings fluttering away inside me all right. Big fat moth wings. You trapped me easily, drew me toward you like I was already in the net.
When I read 'Stand By Me,' it was like, 'This is a look back at the same time period when I was growing up, and it was about kids, but it really felt like what it was like to have those powerful feelings of friendship at age 12.' That's what got to me.
Growing up, I looked to people who had the same issues as me and were still living great lives.
The music that I listened to when I was growing up was the most important to me forever.
I like spiritual songs. They struck me as truthful and serious. They brought me down to earth and they lifted me up all in the same moment.
I like listening to old soul music. I like Sam Cooke. When I was growing up, the first things I was listening to was Whitney Houston and Cher. They were really big inspirations for me.
I didn't see a lot of role models or women who looked like me on screen when I was growing up. For me, one thing that changed all of that was seeing Keke Palmer in 'Akeelah and The Bee.' That film made me realize that I wasn't an alien.
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