I can deal with imperfection, but I can't deal with people who lie to themselves and lie to the world to make the world feel better.
Bibi Bourelly
I can still feel unsure in myself, and l'm still insecure about certain things, but my desire to be happy and my desire to be free is very strong.
I would never say I 'play' guitar. But yeah, I play to write. Same with piano.
I just want to unify people. A crowd full of people singing one song... that doesn't derive from anything dishonest... It's someone's truth.
Daring is doing. Daring is asking something outrageous despite your chances of failure and rejection. Daring is going out on a limb by believing in something that no one else understands, and if all fails, daring is trying again.
At the end of the day, l just want to be myself. I don't set out to be like anyone else.
Music is a lot more powerful than anyone gives it credit for. I can sing something right now and make you feel something that you would not feel if I said it. If somebody can sing and connect to people just through voice, just through sonics, capturing an emotion, that's a direct string to somebody's soul.
People who are their own entity and aren't afraid to be who they are can move a nation. I believe the height of my career is going to be during the start of a revolution.
My dad is Jean-Paul Bourelly, a really prestige guitar player in Europe, and he toured with Miles Davis. I was always surrounded by the most prestige kind of musicians from Senegal, Trinidad, Poland, Nigeria, and all around the world.
I have faith in the people. Honesty will prosper.
As far as songwriting, I'm not sure if they wrote all of their own stuff, but I love the Dixie Chicks.
I'm just trying to give the world something pure for a change. We'll see what happens.
Authenticity can't be replicated or faked. You're either real or you're not.
I believe that I exist for the people. I'm just here to try to make a difference, and hopefully, the people listen and trust me enough to contribute.
A lot of things change when one is granted success: random people pop up, and a lot of the adjustments are rough. My way of coping with them is through focusing on the things that I have accomplished and the things that are yet to come.
If I talk to a new guy, it's because the old guy bores me, and I already wrote a bunch of songs about him.
I got to meet Kanye West because we were shopping my artist deal, and I was interested in his label. When I met him, I played him all the records I had. He introduced me to Rihanna, and she recorded and cut some of those records.
Opportunities don't always come dressed in neon colors.
I don't want to, in the last three minutes of my life, know that I lived it for somebody else.
I fell in love with singing, and through singing, I learned how to write songs. Anything you're consistent with and that you do all the time, you're gonna reap benefits off it at one point. You're not gonna get worse!
I was born in Berlin, and when I was 6, my mom passed. When I was 9, I moved to near Washington, D.C., where I lived with my aunt and uncle. And then at 11, I moved back to Berlin. And then at 16, I got in trouble in school and moved back to the Washington area.
All of my songwriting success happened within a four month time span, and my record label deal happened within the next three months.
My songs are always on the tip of my tongue. It's always bubbling and brewing and about to come out. I can't really put it into words, but the best way to explain it is feeling like you constantly have some things on the tip of your tongue.
True hopefulness and optimism is what leads one to dare. It is also what lifts one back up to dare again after a failed attempt.
To the outside world, I was pretty bad at everything my whole life. People didn't credit me for my musicianship.
The music industry is hard work, especially for women. A lot of people pit us against each other, comparing two body types or two women that are completely different. It's a lot of pressure.
I started writing songs before I could talk - at three or four. It was in me, and I had to get it out. It was all freestyle, which is how I write anyway. I don't write the words down; I scat and come up with the melody, then the lyrics.
My talent before singing is being able to interpret and understand my emotions. I've felt pain and felt it intensely, so every time I sing, I revisit it.
A writer is an artist. They're creating things out of thin air.
What people think of you doesn't matter, because I believe anything's possible. No one's going to convince me I'm not capable of living up to my full potential, because I've obsessed over that idea. The universe wants me to be great for me.
A lot of senior artists say that they support women, but they have a machine of people behind them telling them to be that way. l don't think it's always true and genuine.
School, for me, was a really, genuinely hard thing. It was hard because l am an artist. You can't send an artist to a place where we learn at a mad slow pace sitting in a class.
My music comes from heartbreak - from feeling what it's like to lose everything and not being able to express it through words because it doesn't make sense.
Think about how many dreams die with people - if you don't believe in yourself, whatever you're doing is for no reason.
'Sally' is just a song that I wrote talking to my alter ego. When I write, I don't really consciously say, 'This is what I've been going through in my life, and I'm gonna put this into words.' It's just a song that I kinda went in and did. Then, listening back to it, I realized, 'I'm talking to myself.'
Music is the way I talk to people.
I'm just tryna make real music. I don't want to force the people to follow me.
I was never necessarily conscious of my failures when I attempted something and it didn't work out, because I feel like I'm so in tune with my purpose I never necessarily acknowledge that.
I always do what makes me happy - it doesn't make sense to live life unhappily.
I write songs every day, 14 times a day.
It's hard to give your song away. They're like your kids.
The way I write music for other artists is the same way I write music for myself. I'll pick up the guitar, and I'll write music, and if I don't use it, I have, like, 500 other songs. If I don't use it, I give it away.
Before I was working professionally, I would do YouTube covers. But as a creative person, it was really hard for me when I wasn't releasing my own music. That felt unnatural to me.
I love creating things that come from my gut and my soul.
My goal is to change the art industry.
I want my brand and Bibi Bourelly to represent honesty.
The only thing I can control is myself. I can't control what anyone thinks about me, I can't control circumstance, I can't control the things that God controls.
I'm out here living my dream. People are listening to my music.
I'm not a machine that just comes up with records and can give them away easily.
A lot of the songs that I wrote during 'Pt. 1' and 'Pt. 2' are the first songs that I ever wrote that sounded like that. I was in this phase - a certain creative space in my life - personally and musically.
