A Quote by Queen Latifah
There were musicians that influenced me, but they weren't all women. Teena Marie was a big influence because she wrote and produced her own music, which let me know that women could write and produce their own music, which was an empowering moment for me.
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Music makes me forget my real situation. It transports me into a state which is not my own. Under the influence of music I really seem to feel what I do not feel, to understand what I do not understand, to have powers which I cannot have. Music seems to me to act like yawning or laughter; I have no desire to sleep, but I yawn when I see others yawn; with no reason to laugh, I laugh when I hear others laugh. And music transports me immediately into the condition of soul in which he who wrote the music found himself at that time. ~The Kreutzer Sonata
Just because I write some songs about bad women, though, that doesn't mean I hate women. I've written songs that show great love and respect for women too. Songs that talk about strong, upstanding women and their pain. I have women working on my music. They understand where I'm coming from. So does my mama. I always play my music for her before it comes out. Why do you think I wrote "Dear Mama"? I wrote it for my mama because I love her and I felt I owed her something deep.
To me, music and songwriting is... part of the intriguing thing is the creative process; you know, the creative thought process. Relying on that... there is some sort of inspiration there and you can't always put your finger on where it comes from. So, it's always been important for me to have my own thing and, even though I'm inspired by and influenced by many different musicians and styles of music, I was very determined early on to have my own thing. So when I sit down to write I don't necessarily have a particular narrative or message in mind. I'm interested in language and in words.
I was reading Emily Dickinson and Edwin Arlington Robinson, but these weren't the poets that influenced me. I think Gwendolyn Brooks influenced me because she wrote about Chicago, and she wrote about poor people. And she influenced me in my life by giving me a blurb. I would see her in action, and she listened to every single person. She didn't say, "Oh, I'm tired. I gotta go." She was there, and present, with every single person. She's one of the great teachers.
When I looked at [Fannie Lou] Hamer and that speech it seemed to me that she had to be the bravest woman ever, to come before that body and to assert her rights, when she knew that she was going lose that battle. But she did it anyway, because she knew she was speaking not just for herself and for that day, but for me, and for all the other young women who were coming behind her. She didn't know our names, but she was working for us. I find that incredibly empowering.
Country music was the music I was brought up on. It's the music that's closest to my heart and the music that speaks to me the most, and it's always been a big influence on my own songwriting.
This moment right here, me standing up here all brown with my boobs and my Thursday night of network television full of women of color, competitive women, strong women, women who own their bodies and whose lives revolve around their work instead of their men, women who are big dogs, that could only be happening right now.
I like Kehlani a lot because she's on her grind; she does everything herself. She's writing her own music and, you know, putting all the vocals together, and she's just dope. She just reminds me a lot of me.
When I listen to music, there's usually some aspect of that music that I like, and that's what I take and try to bring into my own music. Bringing in other musicians to collaborate with is a good way for me to test out new ways or make music that I might have not discovered on my own.
I'm from a little island off of Massachusetts, Nantucket. It's hard getting into the music business from there, but my parents took me to songwriting festivals because I would write and produce my own music.
Yeah. It's all in the music first. The music is like women to me. It's like how you pick your music: everybody got their own different way how they pick their women and their music, and I guess that's what the album becomes.
My father who was there in the house, he wasn't at all a role model. And my mother, who was trying to protect me from him as best she could, she took me everywhere with her, which gave me a tremendous amount of sensitivity to the things women go through.
Music, to me, is the most beautiful form, and I love film because film is very related to music. It moves by you in its own rhythm. It's not like reading a book or looking at a painting. It gives you its own time frame, like music, so they are very connected for me. But music to me is the biggest inspiration. When I get depressed, or anything, I go "think of all the music I haven't even heard yet!" So, it's the one thing. Imagine the world without music. Man, just hand me a gun, will you?
Empowering girls is extremely important to me because, growing up, I needed those empowering women to show me the way. When my parents divorced when I was 11, my mom was a force to be reckoned with. She showed me how to be self-sufficient and independent.
I respond to women who have their stuff together, who are in charge, who don't need men to do things for them. I want a woman to have her own thing, you know? My wife is very smart. She's got a doctorate degree; she's got her own career going. She doesn't need me to take care of her.
I was very young, maybe five. The opera was very... I was attracted to opera to the point that I think it's the reason I started to write music for films. I never studied. There are film and music school that teach you how to write music. I never studied that. But the influence of opera, which is a combination of storyline, visuals, staging, plus music... that was perhaps the best school I could have had. That's what gave me the idea of coming to Hollywood to write music for films.
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