I just make music based on what I believe.

A lot of people heard about gin and juice for the first time from Snoop Dogg, but it was nothing new in rap music, and it was nothing new in the black community.

In reality, I know I'm not hurt directly by sexism; however, my life is made less because of it, so I started thinking about the fallout from relationships in which people feed off each other.

A lot of what we say and do are regurgitated things that have to do with what we think we're supposed to be saying and doing.

I wanted to write a song about sexism, but I didn't want to do it in a mechanical way and be like, "Don't be sexist!" because that's not how I talk in regular life.

Death to the pigs is my basic statement.

I wanted to be part of changing the world. I don't want to just stand by and watch it be however it is.

I was an avowed professional revolutionary by the time I was 15.

A lot of us don’t get a sense of our personal power. I know the vast difference that one person can make in changing things.

I am a person who always feels like I am not doing the right thing because there's always so many things that need to get done.

When I was five years old, me and my cousin got into a fistfight because when "That's the Way (I Like It)" came on the radio, he said, "That's my song," and I said, "No, that's my song."

But everything I have to give, I'll give to you

Life is more Easy with a Little Hope and Big Dreams.

Journalism - a profession whose business it is to explain to others what it personally does not understand.

In fact, I've only been to a couple of other people's dinner parties. But I must admit, I really enjoyed the few I've been to, but I'm not really on that circuit.

I fight myself. I don't fight to break Ali's record or Sugar Ray Robinson's record. I fight to please myself. I know in my heart where I'm rated. I didn't fight in Ali's era. This is my era.

In the 1950s that tug-of-war between the expectations of behaving normally and the limitlessness of thinking freely produces some very strange characters.

I didn't even know what a film director was. To me, Charlie Chaplin was a goofy clown, and John Ford - what? Never heard of him.

We can only escape the bloody and ignorant nightmare of history by exploring alternatives which today look frighteningly weird.

What I know concerns me. What I don't know concerns me even more. What people aren't telling me worries me the most.

Luckily, I don't have to be anybody but Yolanda, because people don't expect me to be anything other than who I am. For an artist, it's a great place to be.