Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
The album ['A Seat at the Table'] really feels like storytelling for us all and our family and our lineage.
It is always an honor to work with those that share your passion for music and just enjoy making great music.
I really fell in love with dance. By the time I was seven, I had dance class six times a week. I was obsessed.
Self-love is really a foundation for everything, and however you practice or express that is so, so important.
I have been writing songs since I was 9 years old, so writing has and always will be my first love and passion.
I really enjoy my privacy and being able to walk my son to school every morning and pick him up every afternoon.
From a very early age, I decided that I wanted to be able to do my music but still be able to live a normal life.
At 15, saying I wanted to do a reggae album after growing up in a snazzy house in Houston - it was kind of random.
If I had to define 'sexy' now, as Disney as it sounds, I would have to say it's about complete and utter confidence.
I'm surrounded by such beautiful, creative people, and I just love sort of sharing their stories and their journeys.
With Saint Heron, I really wanted to celebrate and continue to cultivate the community for genre-defying R&B artists.
I think many people, especially from other cultures, just don't understand the role hair plays in Black women's lives.
I think that some people get wrapped up in their own egos. They need to see certain album sales and certain monuments.
The Fela Kuti Queens - the band members and wives of the late African musician Fela Anikulapo Kuti - are my fashion icons.
You just have to know that the more successful you get as an artist, the less of a normal life you have. It's a trade-off.
In my experience, as a young black artist, you have to fulfill an archetype, or be a token - and I was unwilling to do that.
My name, Solange, means 'Angel of the sun,' and I'm completely enamored of my African history. The culture is so expressive.
I have a father who was the first black student at his junior high and high school and had to do a lot to get to that point.
When you take care of yourself, you're a better person for others. When you feel good about yourself, you treat others better.
Every teenage artist out there is mostly talking about boys, and I think there's so much more to being a teenager than just boys.
There are a lot of times when people are diplomatic about things, and I'm not that type. I'm not afraid to say exactly what I mean.
Just going through a marriage and a divorce - which I essentially did by 21 - will give you an insane amount of perspective on life.
I actually love my natural hair when it's in a twist out and it's been slept on for five days and revived by the steam of the shower.
When Destiny's Child released their first record, I don't think I even noticed. I was still at school, and I had my own life in Houston.
I never borrowed clothes from Beyonce when we were growing up. But now my style is a little more tame and hers is a little more adventurous.
Mainstream media tends to showcase a very specific kind of Mardi Gras, but my experience of Mardi Gras is very different; it's very cultural.
I really wanted people just to get to know Solange on my first album, just to establish Solange's sound, just to establish Solange's personality.
It's always been my dream to look like Mariah Carey in my photos with a microphone. I don't know how she does it. When she sings, she looks perfect.
Whether it be a red eyeliner or a graphic line on the crease of my lids, I'm more attracted to the ideas of something interesting than being 'pretty.'
You're just so excited that you have this record deal or this movie opportunity that you don't stand up for yourself and say, This is what I want to do.
My earliest love, which was sort of an obsession, actually, was Nas. I was in seventh grade, I believe, when 'Nastradamus' was out, and I took it pretty far.
So much of your identity in junior high is built on who you're with. You see the world through the lens of how you identify and have been identified at that time.
If I have on a bright red lip, you'll rarely ever catch me with eyeshadow on. It's one or the other for me - pick one feature for the day and really focus on that.
My parents constantly tried to talk me out of being an artist. They had gone through the whole journey with my sister and just wanted me to have a normal teenage life.
I've let go of being a super perfectionist on every single note and wanting the pitch to be absolutely perfect all of the time. I grew up watching the best of the best.
I'd rather be the protector than the protected. I'm naturally the protector - being a mother and having a famous family. You have to navigate when it's right to protect.
Why is it so important for you to give back? I honestly feel like it's our responsibility as citizens of the world to ground ourselves in selflessness and all do our part.
I have a mother who never took no for an answer when it came to her creative pursuits. She started a hair salon in her spare bedroom and four years later had 30 employees.
There are a lot of historical lofts in Houston, and it's amazing for me that a lot of them were built in the 1920s. I love the exposed bricks and the very industrial stuff.
I remember being really young and having this voice inside that told me to trust my gut. And my gut has been really, really strong in my life. It's pretty vocal and it leads me.
He [ the son]'s grown up listening to all types of music, and the natural form of rebellion is to find the one genre that maybe he hasn't listened to and to make that his thing.
The one thing I'm really excited about is that the Saint Heron shop is not grounded in just fashion and clothing. We have connected with artists and artisans in every landscape.
When you think back in history about producers and artists or writers who've had good synergy, a lot of times they date, or they're married, or there's a friendship and a kinship.
There's a lot of situations where I feel irony involved when R&B and hip-hop is expressed in the indie worlds. There's a lot of times when I feel like the juxtaposition becomes a thing.
I don't really have guilty pleasures. Anything musically that I fully, fully believe, is good no matter who the artist is, no matter what the marketing is behind it, I stand pretty firm.
Traveling is definitely something that your average 17-year-old doesn't get to do. One week we're in Japan, one week we're in Australia, one week we're back home going to football games.
Everyone talks about how, in your 30s, all of these growing pains transition into wisdom and you feel more self-assured and confident, but I think I had a bit of a jump-start on that at 27.
One of the things I'm most proud of about myself is my ability to fail in front of the world. You have to have that attitude when you want to experiment in art, in music, in writing, or in fashion.
I actually was a ballet dancer - I studied ballet from three until 13 - but like very seriously, that's what I wanted to do. I wanted to be a contemporary ballet dancer. I wanted to go to Juilliard.
I really feel like because I had my son so young, I didn't want everyone's help. I think people felt entitled to give advice, so I'm always very sensitive to moms and letting them feel their way out.