Jillian Hervey Quotes

I think the lion, besides the elephant, was the one animal that I just started thinking about so much.

[My mom] put me in dance class when I was really young just as a thing to do and I loved it. I remember being excited every time I went, no matter how tired I was - it was the one thing that I always liked doing.

This world is going in all sorts of directions, but I think all you can do is get people to think about things in a different way, because sometimes people aren't even thinking.

I grew up always wanting to be a dancer and when I went to New York, I fell in love with the idea of performing in all ways.

It's so important to embrace what you have because if you don't, that can be the root of very self-destructive habits, which I think people waste a lot of energy on.

My main goal was to not tell my mom anything or anyone anything. Even within our family, we like to do it ourselves, we like to be our own boss, and we don't like asking for help.

That experience of being in the wild in a place where life initially began for all creatures gave me a overwhelming sense of connection.

There are probably still people that are competitive with each other, but I don't feel that's necessary. I like when we lift each other up.

Even growing up, if I dealt with any pressure to be a certain way, I knew that as an artistic lane, dancing was the one that was a little more freed up - like no one in my family is really doing that, I can be that person.

I love to feel that I'm not above anyone.

I think the world tries to put people in a box, like this is the only appropriate way to be beautiful.

Being vulnerable and strong is a complicated thing, but that's who we are.

I was also just strong and quick - it wasn't hard for me to learn how to dance. I was a natural at it.

In general, I think the best thing to do is to connect with other females. I love meeting other female artists and feeling like we're all rooting for each other. I think that's shifted even more.

People just try to put you in a box and I don't see myself in any particular box. I'm making my own box. There's no way I would be able to make the music I'm making without dancing.

I love writing to my little sister. It's a very nice, easy kind of way I always find inspiration.

In New York everyone just kind of knows each other.

We [in my family] don't like to mess around and talk about our problems or complain, it's just not anything that we do.

Obviously, this is our first album [Begin], so this is our first big body of work that's out there in the world and it really represents our journey, from where we started to now and all the music we created, our range, and all the things that we definitely shared, but weren't able to show our range on a full-scale until this album.

Once you train you develop your own aesthetic and your confidence. So, I think as I grow I'm learning how to be a singer. I'm training my voice and being on stage and singing and dancing.

Because of the time we're in, it's so easy to just blend all of it together and it's kind of like you're listening to everything all at once.

Of course the Disney movies, you know all the soundtracks, and anything Gene Kelly and Fred Astaire were doing - Singing in the Rain was one of my favorite musicals I used to watch a lot because my mom came from a theatre background.

I'm totally into the emotional aspect of things.

South Africa was something that just kind of hit me.

Back then, it's weird, because I wasn't consciously thinking about it and I think that's why the doors opened and I had the opportunity. It was a big shift and I realized that you can plan and think your life is going somewhere, but you also have to surrender to what opportunities present themselves and really go for those as well.

Now, it's so sacred. It's how I see the world. I can't help but look at people, their physicality, and how they move. It's how I see everything.

Basically, my senior year of high school, I was going to look at prospective colleges and I went to visit Northeastern University because one of my friends was going.

As we're growing and stuff, it's been amazing to feel so embraced and have them be so excited. I definitely leaned into my dad a little more starting out because once we actually started to get those people knocking on our doors and emailing.

I'm a diehard animal lover - I've always loved animals - but it was just one of those trips that I felt like I was going back to the beginning of where earth started. At the time, where a lot of stuff was brewing anyway, to be in such a beautiful and barren land, and just looking at how life began with all these creatures, I just started to really think about animals and time and just all of it.

You know, you always want to just do your own thing - I mean some people want to be exactly like their parents - Ibut I wanted to do my own thing and I ended up doing a kind of mix of my mom and dad.

Like Lucas [Goodman] has said, between the people we've met, and the experiences we've had, it's just our growth. It's just something that represents all of what Lion Babe started as and where we're going.

I think with the '70s style, you can do a bigger curling iron, so you get those long swirls. If you want it natural-natural, you can also just brush your hair out and tease that. So, it varies on what kind of thing you want to do, but it's nice to have a couple more hands in there to help me or else it takes really long.

I wanted to fight to get into the front. I was just hungry to do it.

I quit piano and violin because it felt too rigid. It was just my thing, something I fell in love with from a very early age.

I was curious because I hadn't really known anyone to do just that, so I would stop in on his sessions with his rapper friends, and then one day, I told Astro Raw "I'm looking to sing. He told me to try it out and then we made 'Treat Me Like Fire' and everything started."

There's so many people that I feel like as soon as that happens, they can really be and focus on what they want to do.

I think when we were starting off, I picked a group of women to represent me. The top tiers of everyone that I've worked with are women. It felt more comfortable because they can relate to me.

I would feel weird having someone style me. It would have to be a collaboration. I've had those experiences and every time it happens I don't feel good. What's the point of putting all this work into something and then when you present it, it's not you?

I think, more importantly, it's about who is your core team? Who are the people around you that are going to fight for you and make sure that's all protected?

It doesn't necessarily always come down to race in the music industry. It can be whoever has the most money, has the most power, and that's really the struggle - dealing with how crazy money is.

My mom is one, but there have been performers in my family since as long as we can trace them back, so I think it was kind of inevitable to be artistic and to have a force. We're leaders; we're a family of leaders, so I think it's just part of my genes.

I think growing up, you just deal with 'I'm ugly,' or 'I don't look right,' or 'my hair is wrong,' and it's such a distraction from what can really elevate you.

It's definitely evolved from where it started - for 'Treat Me Like Fire,' I wanted something extremely wild because I was going to be running through the woods and I wanted it really nappy and crazy.

More than anything, it's been a transition into embracing my destiny. I have everything around me to be able to do this properly. Whether or not I was hiding from that early on, I think now it's great to feel that way. It's just the journey.

This is what I love to do. I love to perform for people that get it or just want something interesting.

Both of my mom's parents were music teachers, so I was hearing the fundamentals of playing the piano, what notes are, and all those things very early on.

I definitely listened to Lauryn Hill - her's was like the first album I bought myself. Brandy's Never Say Never and Lauryn Hill's The Miseducation of Lauryn Hill were always in rotation for a couple of years.

Half of my family is in Los Angeles, so my cousin was the first person to play me, like, Snoop Dogg, and I would always feel like 'Omg I shouldn't be listening to this,' and my other cousin was the first to introduce me to Aaliyah, so every time I'd go to the West Coast, I'd get those West Coast vibes.