I've learned how to be a better performer on stage and interact with the fans, make it feel like a collective experience more than just me singing songs on a stage and feeling really detached.
I'm huge on the dynamic of my show and the experience, not just performing songs. It's important to me to make sure that people experience every song, and feel like I'm singing directly to them. Your eyes never want to leave the stage because there's always something happening.
I feel like when I'm on stage, when I'm writing songs, singing songs, I'm in the studio, I'm shooting videos, I kind of get to become this character, and I can make that whatever I want to make that.
Even as a stage performer, I have my garb which is leather jackets and black jeans to make me feel a certain way. The wardrobe is really important to feeling the character you're playing.
What you're hoping for about the concert is an overall collective experience that everyone has and that you share with them and when you hit the stage you have a "common" feeling. Even though you're the performer and they're the audience there's something uniting everybody in the room.
When I'm on stage, I feel like a performer, for sure. I know people are looking at me and taking pictures and singing along, and that part's wonderful.
I'd like to think I could physically manage doing that, but I don't think it feels authentic to the kind of performer that I am. I think that, for me, being stationary and just sort of singing the songs seems to be the most connected and authentic expression for me on stage.
Pittsburgh's definitely the city where I learned how to be on a stage, hold a microphone, and interact with an audience. It's where I got my chops as an entertainer and as a performer, so I'm grateful to the queer community there because they are active and vocal and they care about each other.
I prefer to connect with fans from the stage. Like, I don't have a Twitter page, or anything like that. So for me, that's what the show is about. For me - is a way to interact with fans; being up onstage and showing them, through music - which is all I really know - the best way to say thank you.
I try to treat all my fans as if they're the stars, and make them feel as important as they make me feel. A lot of times I'll pull them on stage to help me sing songs. I wouldn't have my house, my fame or my career without them voting for me and appreciating this talent that God blessed me with. I just want to share it every day.
I'm trying to get better at singing. I just want to be great vocally on stage so I can give fans a real show, like Jazmine Sullivan does.
It was like Mama suddenly realized I was good, that she didn't have to apologize for me. It was the strangest feeling. One minute I was on stage with my mother, the next moment I was on stage with Judy Garland. One minute she smiled at me, and the next minute she was like the lioness that owned the stage and suddenly found somebody invading her territory. The killer instinct of a performer had come out in her.
Every time I step on stage an' see all of the lights or hear fans singing the words to my songs ,it's a surreal moment for me.
I love being on stage. There's nothing better than that feeling; ever since the first time I was on stage, I was like, 'Oh, this is what it means to be fully alive and satisfied.' I don't think anything's as satisfying as a play.
On stage I'm slightly nervous than when I'm in front of camera. Because when on the stage, the mind can't waiver but at the same time, the energy to be on the stage makes me feel alive.
I really can't tell you the feeling I feel, like, being on stage: it's such a high; it's like running a marathon. You just can't get that feeling anywhere else.
The stage is like a magnifier of thoughts and emotion and vibration; that's what the stage is incredible for because it makes you live other lives. It makes you experience other emotions. It makes you feel more beautiful or more alone or more angry. It makes you feel much more, more, more.