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" I am more prolific when I have something to respond to. I get my juice from people and real stories and things that seem common but are amazing. "

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" Singing in church is a very different approach to music. It's very much about transcending the idea of self. It's about finding something greater that connects all of us. Gospel music is about tapping into that. "

" I don't think words always lead to meaning, but the things you can create with them are still pretty amazing. I've been really into Joni Mitchell, for example, but I've also been into some studio stuff, like Bjork. "

" I live just above a creek, and it's always very active. It almost sounds like the ocean. It's constant, and there's lots of big rocks in it, so it's got a great sound. It's one of my favorite things. "

" The women and the men are teachers and preachers in my family, and a little bit of both those fell on me. "

" Gardening is a working meditation for me. It helps me remember process, and it helps me remember patience. "

" I know how to make myself comfortable. "

" A lot of people in the African-American community are raised by grandmothers, and that relationship is a special bond and circle. "

" I call myself a singer-songwriter influenced by the gospel and jazz tradition. Naturally, because of my lifestyle and love for nature, there's a lot of folk and Americana there because that's just my life. "

" The whole musical institution of the church involves a lot of different styles of communication at the same time. Things like call and response. Sometimes they use the music to pray and work things out. And there's so much repetition in gospel, it's like churning butter. "

" I really just want an audience that is willing to let me live my life and share with them what I get out of my life. "

" I'd been trained in choral, gospel, and a little bit of opera. "

" Jazz has provided the framework for all the other stuff that I've done. "

" I'm a real Otis Redding fan, and I just think he sounds so good. He sounds like he's always at the end of a long day, and he just won't give up. I just love his wearied devotion - that beautiful, beautiful, weathered sound. "

" My father was very strict, a very militant parent, because he wanted us to be very focused kids. He sold the televisions, so we didn't watch TV. And he didn't want any music playing that wasn't gospel or inspirational music. In fact, he didn't even like a lot of gospel because he thought it was too bluesy. "

" The church is an institution of music and of production and performance, and it has to do with taking people to places inside of themselves and giving them an opportunity to sit deep in their own feelings, and to be together and deeply alone at the same time, and to process things. "

" I'm so grateful for just the inherent mercy of life. "

" I think of myself as an interpretative singer and a songwriter. "

" I love talking to other musicians on tour and finding out what we all have to do, not just as artists but as business people. A lot of us are investing and trying to use social media. It is such an interesting level of responsibility and engagement on all these levels. I don't know how one can do this without absolute commitment and faith. "

" There's a lot of pressure that comes from the mainstream stuff, and already people who have been saying - people who don't know any better - have been saying things to me like, 'You should really think about neosoul. You'd definitely be more successful in that.' But that's not my expression. "

" For me, I just want to sing about life. And since I come from a spiritual background, I turned to jazz, because I feel it's still sacred, like gospel. It's serious music, but it allows room to sing about so much other stuff as well. "

" I'm a preacher's kid, I'm big-boned, I have giant feet, and I've always been able to run fast, and so I had this sense of, 'I can't fail. I'm invincible. I'm made of green juice and concrete; nothing's gonna happen to me.' "

" So many great singers we know have come from the church. "

" I studied opera for a year at Georgia State University, but I wasn't interested in that meticulous, technical approach to music. So I left school and went back to jazz. "

" I've always loved the woods, and I've always loved gardening and a lot of solitude and quiet. "

" I'd listen to the radio, especially when my parents were out on house calls to pray for people - you know, shut-ins. Sometimes, if we were incredibly sneaky, we could do it at night when everyone was asleep. "

" I get bored very quickly. "

" Salif Keita's one of my favorite artists. "

" Surrender is working with what happens. "

" I have no ancestral link to the mountains. But I really do feel close to mountain culture. Their ways of food, of thinking. The way they hang out with no recording devices and just sing songs with each other. "

" I've always been genuinely interested in the spirit world. I've seen things I will never talk about because I'd be a fool to. You can't lay out that world in words. "