Solange Knowles: There were things that had been weighing heavy on me...

You get educated by traveling.

Solange Knowles

educated journey travel

Any decision I make is based on myself, and the only person I have to give an explanation to is God.

Solange Knowles

explanation decision giving

I think many people, especially from other cultures, just don't understand the role hair plays in Black women's lives.

Solange Knowles

other-cultures hair thinking

As an artist, everybody has the opportunity to celebrate and speak their truth.

Solange Knowles

speak artist opportunity

I have to learn how to say no a lot. Life is too short for anything else.

Solange Knowles

life-is-too-short too-short life-is

Style is the way we communicate who we are to people before we open our mouths.

Solange Knowles

communicate style people

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.

Solange Knowles

twists natural hair

I love music. But I'm not gonna work myself to death. If there ever comes a point where I'm not enjoying it, then I'm not gonna do it anymore. I've promised myself that. I've written it down on paper and signed a contract.

Solange Knowles

i-love-music music-love paper

I was working through a lot of challenges at every angle of my life, and a lot of self-doubt, a lot of pity-partying. And I think every woman in her twenties has been there - where it feels like no matter what you are doing to fight through the thing that is holding you back, nothing can fill that void.

Solange Knowles

fighting challenges thinking

I just feel so much joy and gratitude that people have connected to it in this way. The biggest reward that I could ever get is seeing women, especially black women, talk about what this album ['A Seat at the Table'] has done, the solace it has given them.

Solange Knowles

gratitude joy people

Women face a lot of challenges every day - we have to stand firm in our walk and our intentions - but there are times when that weight feels too heavy, feels like a load that I just can't bear that day. I try to work through that in my art, whatever medium that might be. My live performance is based around the color red, and all the things that communicates as a woman to the world - fiery, really vocal, present, almost a kind of stubborn color - and redefining it as being very complex. Being able to express that complexity, I'm getting a lot better at that the older I've gotten.

Solange Knowles

challenges trying art

I always have looked at "indie" as a term of "independence." Never associated a sonic gesture with that in the same way that pop music has always meant "popular" to me it didn't define a sound. And I think now that has been the context for things. If something is indie, it almost has this sonic association with it, or pop has become this term of shame almost, like, bubblegum sweet pop.

Solange Knowles

independence sweet thinking

We are getting an education of a lifetime. We're actually out there in the real world.

Solange Knowles

real lifetime world

I've also learned to only write songs and melodies that really work for my voice and that I won't have issues doing live. Because you can get really, really comfortable in the comping process: out of five takes, maybe one of those high notes that you struggled to do, nailed it, and then live you're having that challenge of really having to recreate that.

Solange Knowles

voice writing song

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.

Solange Knowles

marketing artist believe

The album ['A Seat at the Table'] really feels like storytelling for us all and our family and our lineage.

Solange Knowles

lineage albums tables

Our mother always taught us to be in control of our voice and our bodies and our work, and she showed us that through her example. If she conjured up an idea, there was not one element of that idea that she was not going to have her hand in. She was not going to hand that over to someone. And I think it's been an interesting thing to navigate, especially watching you do the same in all aspects of your work: Society labels that a control freak, an obsessive woman, or someone who has an inability to trust her team or to empower other people to do the work, which is completely untrue.

Solange Knowles

team mother thinking

[Beyoncé ] did a kickass job. You were the most patient, loving, wonderful sister ever. In the 30 years that we've been together, I think we've only really, like, butted heads ... we can count on one hand.

Solange Knowles

jobs hands thinking

I actually produced other people's vocals for a long time when I first signed my publishing deal and I had just sort of decided that I only wanted to be a writer. I would be in all of these writing sessions, and a lot of times my publisher would say, "You should get a demo singer to sing it because then it doesn't identify as a Solange song."

Solange Knowles

writing song long

I talk very slow. I move very slow. I definitely have that Southern drawl and although I never necessarily participated in the activities that go along with screw. I definitely was a huge fan of screw. Because melodically, I don't ever really sing very staccato or very fast. It's really about a groove; it's really about a vibe.

Solange Knowles

southern-drawl fans moving

There were things that had been weighing heavy on me for quite some time. And I went into this hole, trying to work through some of these things so that I could be a better me and be a better mom to Julez and be a better wife and a better friend and a better sister.