A Quote by Leigh-Anne Pinnock

We're just four girls with attitude, aren't we? It just happened naturally. And with songs like 'Joan of Arc,' they needed that rap-y take on it. 'Wasabi' has that clap-back-to-the-haters vibe.
I had written rap songs in the early '90s and even did a couple homemade rap songs with my brother in like '88 or '89, but it was just like... I don't even know how to say it. Just plain rap. I was just rapping about whatever, there was no real style or direction, it was just semi-braggadocious rhymes that probably imitated 100 other rappers.
So, it just seemed like it happened naturally. We nailed our live show to some extent in a year or about a year and a half, maybe just a year of playing songs pretty much around L.A. then we went and scheduled a mini-tour up-state on the West Coast and that's when the whole Rough Trade [Records] thing started happening and from there, things just happened so quick. It changed really quickly.
I always wanted to play Joan of Arc. I've always wanted to do that. Now I'm thinking, 'Maybe there's a story in Joan of Arc's mother!' If I don't hurry up, her grandmother!
Okay, so 'clap back' is when you might be in a confrontation with someone and they're coming at you negatively, but you put them in their place but without being too nasty, so you just clap back a little bit.
When I was in New York, the whole vibe was really just not matching with me. I was kind of super depressed in New York. It just had this vibe of 'Get out,' you know? I would try to get out, and we'd look back and just see the city and feel like, 'Oh, I have to go back to prison again.'
I... was not too happy to suddenly take on this public role thrust upon me. They just assumed I was the Joan of Arc of the women's movement. And I wasn't at all. It put a lot of unnecessary pressure on me.
When you play all that as a body of work there are four great songs, four mediocre songs and four bad songs. I didn't know it at the time; I was just doing my best.
A big part of making a good record is really getting a vibe, and a vibe is a mysterious thing. The vibe kind of exists in the air in the room. It's not just all the stuff you put on there, and the specific notes and arrangements and all that. That's like half of it. The other half is just the air, and just the spirit.
I've never been a rap guy, I don't really know that much about rap music, to be honest. I like it, but I think what really happened was just my music seems to work so well with rap music.
Sometimes I just think people are haters. And if they're haters, you can listen to what they have to say but you have to take it with a grain of salt.
If my songs are being listened to between any other songs, that is awesome, and I'm glad people are getting something out of them. We go to countries like Germany, where I can't imagine that all of my fans are engaging with the lyrics first and foremost. I think they're catching a vibe, a feeling. I consider myself a lyricist first and foremost, but if you get something else out of what I do, that's fine too. I'm not sitting back and telling people how they have to take my stuff. We just want to play music, and hope that people like it.
It takes two hands to clap! I cannot be solely blamed for what happened in my relationships! If things soured, it happened because of both parties. Not just me!
When I was on the 'Knock Madness' tour, I was just thinking about life; I started questioning God. I was praying a lot. I was just really emotional. I was going through a break up situation as well. And I just felt like I needed to be home. I was over the rap thing. I just felt like I wasn't getting the respect and credit that I deserve.
We never really dreamed of being a band until it just naturally happened. All of a sudden, we were like, 'Maybe we should take this kind of seriously, because people seem to like it.'
When I joined this band, I never thought of myself as a singer. I just did whatever I could, which was rap. And then, over time, I've grown, and we've developed and tried different things. It all happened gradually and naturally.
Most of the really good songs are dead true. ... It had to have happened to have the song be there. Every time I've tried to make stuff up it just kind of falls flat. So the majority of my work is something that happened to me, I saw happen to someone else, or a friend of mine told me happened. There is a certain amount of theatrical and poetic license. People are supposed to like it, that's why you're doing it. It's supposed to be fun. It's not brain surgery, it's heart surgery. They're just songs.
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