Dawn Richard Quotes

When I was 4, I had a schedule. I was playing softball. My brother was playing football. My parents were teachers, and they'd owned businesses. We like to work hard. Work and then books. Books and then work. We just knew that we had to excel. It sounds militant, but trust me, it was fun.

- Dawn Richard

I watched my parents lose everything, from a house to birth certificates. We were homeless for about six months, then we stayed in Baltimore, and my parents got jobs.

- Dawn Richard

I'm big on showing people versatility. I'm constantly trying to push myself to break barriers and the idea that we have to stay in one lane.

- Dawn Richard

I connect so much with Peter Gabriel's sound because, to me, he always had that South African vibe. His drums were always something to move to: it was almost like Calypso. I'm a big fan.

- Dawn Richard

Growing up, my parents were Roman Catholic - strict Catholics - from New Orleans. I understood the idea in the principle of spirituality. I noticed it in the stories that I read. The Trinity was something that was brought up consistently: the power of three. Things happened in threes, and I thought that was brilliant.

- Dawn Richard

I've had two platinum albums. I have worked with thousands of people. But the most rewarding feeling is to see people on Twitter say, 'Do you see what Dawn and them are doing? They are number one.' It's the most rewarding feeling because of all the tears, all the bad stuff, and the people that said I couldn't do it.

- Dawn Richard

I can be a little messy and wild and carefree with my creativity as a solo artist. In a group, there's a certain structure, and everyone has a part to play, and being a solo artist, I can do as I please.

- Dawn Richard

People want to peg you as alternative R&B when they hear soul or see the color of your skin. It's comfortable when people see artists of color or artists that come from a different country to put that brand on us. It's just not as linear as that.

- Dawn Richard

A lot of 'Blackheart' was me, literally in a dark room, confessing my sins; Poe was the influence for that album. But that melancholy has a hopefulness - in every Poe story, there is always a moral at the end.

- Dawn Richard

'Goldenheart' is like a modern-day Joan of Arc. Think of it like medieval times-cum-2045 or Lancelot and Guinevere in 3025. It's a new version of these battles - age-old stories for the now.

- Dawn Richard

I want to get up and celebrate something - and why not celebrate being a woman?

- Dawn Richard

The black geeks of the world, we feel like we don't have a home.

- Dawn Richard

Music and dance is part of everything in New Orleans. So I grew up appreciating it all.

- Dawn Richard

When my dad went to college to get his master's from Loyola, he was playing Debussy and Chopin and Beethoven. But he played all that New Orleans stuff, too. I would go with my dad to gigs, pick up the piano and the speakers, and I would be like his roadie.

- Dawn Richard

I really got back to my New Orleans roots - my grandfather played with Fats Domino. We had to leave after Katrina, but I feel like, spiritually, I'm back there.

- Dawn Richard

How many people can say they had Anna Wintour on a record? Not even an album, just a mixtape? It's audacious, disrespectful, and I feel like it's a little bit raw, and that's what Dirty Money is.

- Dawn Richard

I had no idea that what I thought was my low wasn't really my low. That's what a lot of people think - then life reminds them, 'No, there's lower.'

- Dawn Richard

I did write more mainstream stuff with DK. But you could always tell the records that I wrote in contrast with everybody else's because the format was a bit different. The harmonies were used in a different type of way. Way more metaphors in the mix.

- Dawn Richard

You have to put time into the art to do it, and you have to know that what you'll get out of it is not a financial or a fame thing. It'll just be the pleasure of being an artist. And I'm cool with that.

- Dawn Richard

I started to write my own stories, like small novels, and those novels became poems, and after poems, they became lyrics, and song came from that.

- Dawn Richard

I just want to be a storyteller, and I think the way to do that is by your lyrics, by your visuals, by your choreography, by your dance. It's imperative as an artist.

- Dawn Richard

'Blackheart' is purely falling into the electronic world and pushing the envelope.

- Dawn Richard

My uncle is in the hall of fame for creating by hand some of the most intricate Indian Mardi Gras garb.

- Dawn Richard

When you see what you really are, good or bad, there is a fearlessness to understanding your purpose.

- Dawn Richard

I lived in the library with my grandmother as a child. I still love the smell of books; the library card is still my friend.

- Dawn Richard

Instagram is just something I like to do. I feel it's the best way to portray who you are.

- Dawn Richard

There's definitely that tribal Africana thing going on in my sound. It's that marching band, second-line music, that Creole-influence in the kick, and the snare that drives everything for me. I think it's really what's separated my sound from a lot of the R&B and pop music out there.

- Dawn Richard

When I was growing up, there was no one. There were very few black women in tech; there were very few black women in the fashion game. We didn't have our Grace Jones - Grace Jones was before my time. We didn't really have a lot of black women in electronic and punk who were celebrated in the same levels as, say, your big mega-superstars.

- Dawn Richard

I don't really feel there's rules in my everyday wear. I kind of do whatever the hell I want to do.

- Dawn Richard

I come from an era where lyrics were full of imagery and metaphor, and that's all I know. I think people miss that.

- Dawn Richard

There is a thing about women that needs to be understood. We don't sit well with being put in a certain place.

- Dawn Richard

You don't need validation from other people. You've gotta find it within yourself and sit in it and roll with it.

- Dawn Richard

It doesn't bother me when I'm labeled, but it's so... limiting. It's so boxy.

- Dawn Richard

Besides music, I was all school, school, school. And softball. I played the game since I was four, and I wanted to go to the Olympics for softball. I got a full scholarship through softball.

- Dawn Richard

Just as much as you need the people who love you, you need the people who doubt you - to prove them wrong.

- Dawn Richard

There's always going to be a fight between mainstream and underground because the mainstream is a very small bubble, and the underground scene is a very small bubble, and they both see themselves as secret societies. But I never saw it that way. I always thought music was open to all things.

- Dawn Richard

You don't know how far you can go until you push it.

- Dawn Richard

When I get inspired, I give out free music. If you look at my track record from the beginning, that's always what I've done. I've never changed.

- Dawn Richard

Originally, I was set on going to Hawaii Pacific University. We visited the campus in Hawaii. I was gonna be a Rainbow Warrior. I was gonna play softball. I was gonna major in marine biology. Everything was set. Then my dad was like, 'So you're not gonna do music? If you do go to Hawaii, there's no studios there, baby girl.'

- Dawn Richard

I love what a women embodies. I love our bodies; I love the way we communicate with our bodies. I love the way dance creates movement. It's art in motion.

- Dawn Richard

I think, my entire life, I was a bit different. And I didn't think I was different; I just kinda always stuck out.

- Dawn Richard

There's a fine line between artist and product. I don't think the industry purposely does it, but I think that's just the way they maneuver. You have to be careful that doesn't become your story, where you become a product, and your art is tarnished because you're just seen as a tool to make money.

- Dawn Richard

'The Red Era' is for everybody. Every gay, every fluid, every black, every white.

- Dawn Richard

Songwriting was my own journey. I never fit in with structure in songwriting.

- Dawn Richard

I had always had an affinity for series in literature, and I thought it would be really cool to incorporate what I loved about books into the story of music, to pile it together.

- Dawn Richard

I wanted to make an album that sounded like a release of inhibitions, really getting away from the idea that you have to be anything other than in that moment.

- Dawn Richard

I always knew who I was, but everyone else wanted to me to be their 'idea' of the 'right' artist. At times, I even believed them.

- Dawn Richard

Everyone who knows Puff knows Puff rolls with himself. His hustle is money. That's what he does.

- Dawn Richard

Dreams rise like the sun and set like the sun: One minute, it is high and bright; the next minute, you might lose it.

- Dawn Richard

I promised myself that I wouldn't be afraid to be who I was when I chose to do this music thing.

- Dawn Richard

'Redemption' is about understanding myself and not worrying about my relationship with the industry.

- Dawn Richard

'Redemption' sounds like a jubilee. Like a second line, if you will.

- Dawn Richard

My director, Monty Marsh, is really awesome - I've been working with him for years now.

- Dawn Richard

I don't wish homelessness on anyone, especially when you come from where your parents work hard.

- Dawn Richard

The problem with Danity Kane is everybody wanted to play everybody's role, and when you're in a group like that, that can't survive.

- Dawn Richard

'Armor On' explains why I needed armor in the first place. Sonically, you'll hear this battle of, 'I love you, no I don't. I love you, I hate you.' That's what you'll feel. You see the story kind of fight against itself.

- Dawn Richard

I'm not mainstream. You gotta find me.

- Dawn Richard

I've grown so much in the music industry. From 'GoldenHeart,' it was just about me and the music and me in this dream. With 'BlackHeart,' its more about me and who I am and what role I play in my own life and in the business.

- Dawn Richard

My dad was a teacher. He has a Masters in music. He taught elementary school, and he played gigs his whole life, and we lived good.

- Dawn Richard

I couldn't do a record without knowing I'll translate it into something visual.

- Dawn Richard

My music speaks of warriors. It speaks of women being kings and this sense of pride of being more, even though you have less.

- Dawn Richard

It's always interesting when you're doing things yourself - getting the lighting, getting everybody together. It's exciting.

- Dawn Richard

I'd only do a deal with a label if it allowed me to still be indie and have that indie mentality. I have to have creative control.

- Dawn Richard

I'm okay with being the oddball.

- Dawn Richard

I want to show that you can be just as amazing as labels and compete as a business and work as a business even though you're an artist.

- Dawn Richard

I would describe my personal style as putting Twiggy and Yoko Ono together. It is hobo with no rules.

- Dawn Richard

I don't take myself too seriously.

- Dawn Richard

Hair pieces and head dresses have always been something that's been part of my culture.

- Dawn Richard

R&B needs to see a new light. It doesn't have to be pigeonholed.

- Dawn Richard

I do not have a history in set design. I have a history in art. I draw. But I learned set design when I couldn't afford to have a team and I didn't want to look like I was indie. I wanted to give fans the visual.

- Dawn Richard

Anything that creates fear, I want to conquer it.

- Dawn Richard

Fashion is my lover on the side, but I am married to music.

- Dawn Richard

When I look half naked on stage, it's not because I'm trying to be sexy but because I am dancing and want to be mobile enough to move.

- Dawn Richard

I got in the audition line called 'Making the Band' because I wanted to be in a band. If I didn't, I would have done 'American Idol.'

- Dawn Richard

I always treat shows as though they could belong on either platform. I always design it for the bigger stage, but I love it on the smaller stage.

- Dawn Richard

It's a lot of work being an indie artist, but it's worth it.

- Dawn Richard

Be exactly who you are. You can fit in any space you see yourself in. Be fearless.

- Dawn Richard

My grandmother had a Ph.D in library science, so I grew up in a library, and I would appreciate those books and the smell of them and how they'd have these series, and it was cool to me. I always felt like, if I had an opportunity, I'd create an album that felt like a series.

- Dawn Richard

To create and do something no one else has done before - that feeling beats anything else I've felt.

- Dawn Richard

I wake up every day in a different headspace, so on any given day, my hairstyle will change.

- Dawn Richard

I believe I am standing firm as a black woman in this industry in a time that it is hard as an artist period.

- Dawn Richard

I write for myself. It's therapy.

- Dawn Richard

I like being in charge. I like being able to control my own destiny and ideas.

- Dawn Richard

My father's music is all I remember from my childhood.

- Dawn Richard