Quote

I was so moved by music that I wanted to create it as well, but once you decide that's what you want to do with your life, to be successful, you have to be business-minded, too.

I'm an artist, but I'm also a businesswoman, and sometimes you have to play hard.

I don't believe any artist who says, 'I had to do that because DJs will tell me I can't play that music. I will lose my job.' Well, lose the job and create a new job. If your label won't let you have the cover you want or sing the songs you want, then leave!

The music business is a crazy game, especially for somebody like me who is really a purist about the art. Trying to balance the pressures of commercialism, it's a tightrope. It's a fine line between sticking to your guns and insanity.

You can't fool yourself anymore that your art is your art. When you're not getting paid for that song that's being traded back and forth among millions of people on the Internet, you have to think like a businessperson.

I have a repertoire of songs that I'm proud of, that I've written for my own band. When I do a cover, something that somebody else has written, I think about it very carefully before I sing that song. I have to really get behind it and understand it and like it. And that's how I pick roles. I don't want to play just anything.

When you're an artist, you can only do your own stuff. Even if you only write for other people, you're really more focused on yourself. So while everybody's out touring, I'm working on records.

I have known from the beginning one thing you need to know. That is, the music business is a business.