What opens my heart is when my son wakes me up in the morning, nudging me and saying, 'Mommy, mommy!'

I'm free. I just do what I want, say what I want, say how I feel, and I don't try to hurt nobody. I just try to make sure that I don't compromise my art in any kind of way, and I think people respect that.

Whenever I think about funk music, it has a look - and that's how it sounds.

I come from a long line of matriarchal women, and my greatest teachers were my mothers.

I go through phases of stuff.

I remember when I signed with Kedar Entertainment through Universal Records. It was my first record deal and it's the one I still have now. At that time, there had been a couple of opportunities I was almost given, but at the last minute the giver came back and told me it couldn't happen.

As Erykah Badu, it has nothing to do with me, the way I look, my hair wrap, my style, it's about you and what you feel for my music. If I can make you feel like the way that people who influenced me made me feel, that's completion.