I can be Erykah the human being more than the celebrity.

In the morning, instead of saying to yourself, ‘I got to wake up’ say ‘I get to wake up!’

I have a Pinterest, and if you look there you'll see the things I really like and adore, have crushes on, and there's a lot of stuff from Riccardo's [Tisci] line on there.

My hair is an aesthetic choice… At the same time, how you wear your hair is a political statement as well.

I'm a product of its [american] teaching, of its thinking, of its -isms, of its religion, of its education. I am conditioned, raised and developed by America; I am America. And as it changes, my thoughts also change. Because no matter what I believe, what the powers-that-be believe will affect me.

I had the opportunity, as a child, to grow up in a community center where I was exposed to theater, music, art, and computer science; things that I would have never had the opportunity to even meet had it not been for those people taking time out of their schedules, helping us as children to travel all over the world while sitting in a gymnasium. That's what I did before I was a musician, before I was a recording artist, I was a teacher and a community leader.

I have an organization called BLIND [Beautiful Love Incorporated Nonprofit Development], so named because even though my interest is in the black community, because that's where I grew up and that's where I'm most skilled in fixing things, it doesn't end there.