Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
I model a lot and I'm very fortunate and blessed to be able to do as many partnerships I do for an underground musician such as myself.
My mother picked my name with a spiritual intention: Destiny, 'what was meant to be.' She was a very special woman, and a gifted witch.
Black people created rock music, it's a fact. Black people created bluegrass and rock and roll way before Elvis Presley and The Beatles.
That's why I created Smart Girl Club in the first place because I really wanted to combat the non-inclusion that I felt in a lot of places.
I prefer my partner to have profound, deep intellect, a profound education, but where their education comes from is no preference of my own.
Everybody wants to act like I ain't a big deal when I am. I'm one of the most successful, relevant and influential rappers of my generation.
I started modeling before '1992,' and I had already done Calvin Klein and Target and Gap and Diesel, Reebok, so I had been modeling for a little bit.
I used to go onstage with no makeup on. And then I realised I was looking a little crazy and I had to grow up a bit and look more presentable as a woman.
I'd been suffering all of my life. I think comedians and artists, we do that. We know how to be the life of the party and enjoy exuberance outside of pain.
I'm very conscious of my body, and how I take care of it. I like clean foods, drink a lot of water, and soak up much sunlight and positive energy as I can.
Black people created punk - the band Death was way before The Ramones. Same with Bad Brains. If you think about it, the wool has been pulled over our eyes.
I feel like I've had a really great time just being able to make all the music that I've always liked to make and listen to and expressing it in different ways.
Sometimes people think that I'm maybe pretentious or just weird, a fraud, or fake, because I have a formal education and speak properly and give people respect.
Men should understand that women are creatures of nature, and that they are to be respected as nature, and that they are interchangeable and complex like nature.
I was always so many different things, all at once: a little hood, a little punk, a little grunge, a little glam, a little gay. I have a whole bunch of flavours.
Everything really came together on '1992.' That isn't to dismiss my earlier works - they were great - but when I focused myself on hip-hop everything just clicked.
Jordans? No. I thought mohawks, leather jackets, studs, piercings, colored hair, leopard print, platforms, all the bondage wear, I thought that was the coolest thing.
I've written all of my songs, I directed all my videos. Every part of what I've done for music, from the visuals to the business, I did it. And I'm really proud of that.
Queer culture was introduced to me at a very early age. It was introduced to me with a semi-positive facet because no one in my family is remotely homophobic or closed-minded.
People look down on teen moms and young mothers when they are the most gracious and significant women on this Earth. They sacrifice their freedom and their lives to give life.
I bike around New York City for hours and write about everything I love, think about, or see. I also ride back and forth on the subway - that's where I get my best writing done.
My experience is that white kids love hip-hop, and brown and black kids love rock music. That shows that brown kids - they carry emotion, they carry pain, they carry oppression and strife.
It took me a long time to get to where I am, but I am here and it is everywhere I want to be. A place where both my artistic merit and hard work meet. A day where I can say, 'Yeah, I'm a musician. A good one.'
My ancestors had to keep their customs secret for fear of death or persecution, so it's common to be secretive and discreet about Regla de Ocha. But it's my family's spirituality, so I don't want to keep it secret.
The music that I will continue to make will certainly draw upon those experiences of being a loner, of being an emo goth kid, of being a New York City aficionado, of being a witch, a feminist, a brown radical woman.
All the greatest comedians use comedy and humor to release pain and sadness, and I think that instead of wanting to live within my pain, or live within my sadness, I try to be funny and look at things with a funny view.
I think that if I was a white male people would get me more. I do. I think that. I think a lot of things would make more sense if I was a guy and if I had people supporting me and saying this is the greatest thing in the world.
When I started out rapping, I became very frightened by the idea that people were trying to pigeonhole me. That's usually what happens to most female rappers. They fit in a box and there's a prototype or person they're compared to.
I like a lot of older rock 'n' roll artists, like legends like Freddie Mercury and David Bowie. They really influenced me to be very, very androgynous and very commanding, and very very - I wouldn't say odd, but I would say eccentric.
There are many types of education: formal education, street education, personal education, experiential education, and I've found that I've had different partners who have a lot of wonderful intellect and education from all different types of sources.
I had been introduced to rapping in a way where women and people did it, it was structured. It had this very very political structure to it and if you didn't follow the structure, you weren't considered validated or real and that just gave me anxiety.
I'm loud, I'm super comedic about my life, and I always try to look for partners who are the same about theirs, and with that I just try to always find a partner who I can have a laugh with who completely understands me before I begin to share anything.
I remember at school one day there was a vocabulary list on the chalkboard, and the word 'nonconformist' was on there, and it said, 'Someone that doesn't appeal to society, someone who doesn't fit in.' We had this whole conversation about it, and I realized it cohered to the punk-rock world that I was into.