I have a master plan as an artist. I've always said I'm not going to be punching nobody's clock. I will work as an artist to survive in this world.

Erykah Badu projects don't even sound like Erykah Badu projects. I don't even have one album that sounds like another one of my albums.

I really enjoy being the child's 'welcoming committee' and to help someone usher his or her spirit into the world in a very peaceful way is very effortless to me.

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.

What makes me furious, not just because we're in an interview, but I don't like when writers take your words and put them somewhere else, in the wrong context in their own article about you.

Society has a problem with female nudity when it is not . . . ”—Badu pauses to get her words together; she wants this point to be very clear—“. . . when it is not packaged for the consumption of male entertainment. Then it becomes confusing.

Now my record deal helps me to do things for free or give more time to my community than I could otherwise.