My grandmother had a Ph.D in library science, so I grew up in a library, and I would appreciate those books and the smell of them and how they'd have these series, and it was cool to me. I always felt like, if I had an opportunity, I'd create an album that felt like a series.

Dawn Richard

You don't know how far you can go until you push it.

Dawn Richard

I wake up every day in a different headspace, so on any given day, my hairstyle will change.

Dawn Richard

There is a thing about women that needs to be understood. We don't sit well with being put in a certain place.

Dawn Richard

Music and dance is part of everything in New Orleans. So I grew up appreciating it all.

Dawn Richard

I wanted to make an album that sounded like a release of inhibitions, really getting away from the idea that you have to be anything other than in that moment.

Dawn Richard

I would describe my personal style as putting Twiggy and Yoko Ono together. It is hobo with no rules.

Dawn Richard

I started to write my own stories, like small novels, and those novels became poems, and after poems, they became lyrics, and song came from that.

Dawn Richard

I do not have a history in set design. I have a history in art. I draw. But I learned set design when I couldn't afford to have a team and I didn't want to look like I was indie. I wanted to give fans the visual.

Dawn Richard

When my dad went to college to get his master's from Loyola, he was playing Debussy and Chopin and Beethoven. But he played all that New Orleans stuff, too. I would go with my dad to gigs, pick up the piano and the speakers, and I would be like his roadie.

Dawn Richard

Songwriting was my own journey. I never fit in with structure in songwriting.

Dawn Richard

'Redemption' sounds like a jubilee. Like a second line, if you will.

Dawn Richard

You don't need validation from other people. You've gotta find it within yourself and sit in it and roll with it.

Dawn Richard

There's a fine line between artist and product. I don't think the industry purposely does it, but I think that's just the way they maneuver. You have to be careful that doesn't become your story, where you become a product, and your art is tarnished because you're just seen as a tool to make money.

Dawn Richard

I don't really feel there's rules in my everyday wear. I kind of do whatever the hell I want to do.

Dawn Richard

Be exactly who you are. You can fit in any space you see yourself in. Be fearless.

Dawn Richard

I believe I am standing firm as a black woman in this industry in a time that it is hard as an artist period.

Dawn Richard

When I was 4, I had a schedule. I was playing softball. My brother was playing football. My parents were teachers, and they'd owned businesses. We like to work hard. Work and then books. Books and then work. We just knew that we had to excel. It sounds militant, but trust me, it was fun.

Dawn Richard

There's always going to be a fight between mainstream and underground because the mainstream is a very small bubble, and the underground scene is a very small bubble, and they both see themselves as secret societies. But I never saw it that way. I always thought music was open to all things.

Dawn Richard

Instagram is just something I like to do. I feel it's the best way to portray who you are.

Dawn Richard

I don't take myself too seriously.

Dawn Richard