One of my core values is to help redefine what it means to be a strong and beautiful woman in the music and fashion worlds and to empower the wonderful things that make us unique.
I believe it's time that women truly owned their superpowers and used their beauty and strength to change the world around them. Becoming a CoverGirl is truly and honor and a gift: it opens up a new platform for me to inspire women to feel stronger, braver and more beautiful inside and out.
Redefine what it means to be sexy and what it means to be a woman. Showing my skin is not what makes me sexy. I like skirts and dresses just like everyone else, but I had a message I needed to put out there. It was up to me to show people and young girls there was another way.
Lauryn Hill, P-Funk, Marvin Gaye, Public Enemy - I have a very diverse palate for music. I can go from Judy Garland to Jimi Hendrix to Stevie Wonder to Rachmaninoff. I just love great music.
I'm always thinking about young people first when I'm writing music. Whenever I can reach that young person and inspire them to go after their own dreams, start their own movement just like I did with Wondaland. Starting their own tribe and showing people that we are not all the same, we're not all monolithic. I think that's what it's all about for me.
I'm a believer that the more I'm giving, the happier I am, and the more beautiful my exterior will be.
Everything is about balance. You can't work, work, work, work without any play.
Some songs you get. Some songs you may not. And I think that's the beauty of art: to question and to ask, to understand the deeper meaning after two or three or four listenings.
I have not lost any of my crazy, fearless, raw, soulful, eclectic side and I plan on continuing to tell universal stories in an unforgettable way.
Android is a new form of the other, but you can parallel the other to so many different types of people. Even if you don't consider yourself to be the other, at one point in time I'm sure you felt like that.
When I got into the music industry, I wasn't focused on being the most famous artist or even getting a major record deal. It was just to make music on my own terms or create my own image, do my own hair, do my own makeup.
No matter if you wear a small amount of makeup, no makeup, or heavy makeup, as long as you feel beautiful internally and you're doing beautiful things for other people, and not just focusing on the exterior to make yourself happy, I think you should do what works for you. You should rock on.
I love the mystery behind things.
It's hard for me to be serious. I can't really rub oil on me and go all the way with it [laughs]. I hear some screams and I laugh to myself. I always get a kick out of it. I'm three feet tall, basically.
First, before I'm an artist, before I'm a celebrity, I'm a human being.
I was made to believe there's something wrong with me.
The colors black and white are my uniform, to honor the working class. People like my parents, who were janitors and had to wear a uniform every day. It keeps me grounded.
I'm always thinking about that young girl or young boy who doesn't quite know if their music, their messaging, their imaging, their voice is going to pop, if people are going to understand them. So I represent the other and those who feel like they don't even want to be normal. They embrace the things that make them unique.
I don’t even know at what age I started, because it’s always been there. Performing … creating … it’s in my DNA.
I think if people genuinely want to help ... that'll shine through, no matter what color or what race. We cannot see race before compassion.
I enjoy how women dressed in the 1920s with the shimmering jewels and rich feathers.
I'm attracted to things that scare me, like 'Psycho,' my favorite Hitchcock movie.
I know what I like; if you go to my closet, I have at least four of everything.
Perfection is the often the enemy of greatness.
People in my family and camp who grew up listening to rap music love 'We Are Young.' I've heard it play at weddings. I've heard it in graduation parties. It's a big idea and big song.
