As a person, I'm just trying to be better than I was yesterday and continue to elevate.
Gabriella Wilson
To live your truth and sing your truth, that defines success.
I'd rather have quality over quantity. It's about perfecting each song and making sure it's what you want to do. And then even with what I share it's all very strategic.
Sometimes it's all about hype, and I didn't want hype.
My dad and I would perform around the Bay Area where I'm from in California together, and I also did talent shows growing up, I loved it.
I go to my mom's house and she'll make me do the dishes or clean up.
I just love music, and that's what I want people to see and respect.
Good things take time.
Whether you know who I am or not, you don't really know who I am.
I'm so thankful that at this point, even if you see my face or know who I am, it doesn't matter, because you already love the music.
A lot of women need to know that they don't have to conform, they don't have to take no for an answer.
Black culture, to me, is so important and I identify with young black women.
People have always tried to imitate, but at the end of the day, no one can do me better than I can do me, you know?
I was almost afraid to speak on the things I've dealt with as a woman.
When I was a little bitty kid, I was listening to the stuff my parents were listening to. My mom was a huge Whitney Houston, Mariah Carey, Mary J. Blige fan. My dad had a cover band that I sang with, and he loved Parliament, Prince, Jimi Hendrix, and Eric Clapton, the blues, James Brown.
It's not a popularity contest to me. It should always be about the music.
People do things on Instagram and put on a front and try to live a life that they may not really want to live, or don't truly believe in. And that's the life that they portray. That's not the real them. We all have to be more aware of what is that's really happening inside. Are we really standing for what we believe in?
I think people often tend to listen to music with their eyes and not their ears, and I just wanted my work to shine, and to be able to convey my message without imagery taking away from that.
I like to pair clothes or accessories that wouldn't usually go together.
Some people, they make these assumptions before they even listen to the music.
We live in an era of social media. We care more about looks, popularity and followers than about real music. And I wanted to get away from that.
It's a great thing to hear people putting me up to this standard and putting me on this pedestal and expecting greatness from me, but at the end of the day, I'm just trying to be a better me as an artist musically.
I've been writing since I was five years old. I used to write poetry, and I loved to rhyme.
I always feel like we focus too much on image and the flashiness of what it means to be an artist.
I'm a sneaker girl, but I like to make comfort fancy.
As a young woman, I experienced high school and heartbreak, and the music I started to write was a little bit more poetic, and more inspired by spoken word. The real raw emotional things that sit in the back of our minds, that you were afraid to say? That's how I started to write my music. And that's how 'H.E.R. Volume One' came about.
I've learned a lot about myself through my music and the way people perceive it, and the goal is for the success not to change me.
I don't like to rush things.
I'm a perfectionist and I want everything to be amazing every single show.
People are gonna listen to the music whether or not I reveal myself.
Being anonymous, I thought I'd just release the music and see what happens organically.
I would not be able to sleep at night and I would practice my Grammys speech. That was definitely me.
It's really powerful to have a strong base that genuinely loves the music and plays it over and over again.
As a black woman, I've always had to work hard to earn my respect as a musician - and as a young woman, too. As a writer, in certain sessions or certain rooms people think, 'Who's kid is this? Who's this little girl?' I've had to prove myself.
Seeing people Tweet my lyrics and really feeling for me, feeling what I'm feeling... in one of my lyrics I sing about 'the watch I just got for you,' and some girl was like, 'Yes! I bought him a watch!' I can be happy because these women feel me.
I really just wanted it to be about the music, and get away from, 'Who is she with?' and 'What is she wearing?'
I want people to feel the emotion, try to relate to the way that I look or want to be like me in the way that I'm living or whatever.
Throughout my teenage years or whatever, I've been so uncomfortable, or I've made mistakes and I've felt like I'm the only one who has done that.
Through the music, you can pretty much tell what I've been through and what I've accepted. And releasing it has made me realize I'm not alone in it, because of the reactions I've been getting.
I don't want people to love my music because of what I look like or who I know or whatever.
I plan on donating a bunch of guitars to different schools around the country. There could be a new Slash out there, there could be a new Lenny Kravitz.
Music was all around me from the time I came into the world.
My parents have very different tastes. They exposed me to so many different things. I represent both sides.
My dad had a cover band. They would rehearse in my living room while my mom was pregnant.
The fact that I can travel around the world doing what I love is such a blessing. I've learned that traveling is such an important thing; there's so many beautiful things out there and we get worried about such little things.
I don't know if I have a favorite part of being an artist. I do love being onstage and performing with my band. I also love rehearsing with them and creating the show, that's always a fun part. But there's also nothing like being in the studio and being able to get back to myself and get back to my feelings.
The studio is the place for me to really confront my feelings and get it all out. I love being in that space and creating, doing what I love, making art.
I always say that my music is my diary. It's very personal to me.
Sometimes I'll just go on my piano and just start playing what I'm feeling. It all depends on what I'm feeling at the moment.
I was a kid. I would go home and play instruments, and I would be at school on the playground the next day.
