Kelis Quotes

I think of myself as a performance artist. I hate being called a pop star. I hate that.

Love the art in yourself and not yourself in the art.

When people like your music because it has vulnerable honesty, and you're able to comfortably admit to flaws and imperfections, then that's the most liberating thing about being an artist.

I personally feel like people shouldn't have to come out. That, to me, was like a moment for myself where I was coming out to myself with, like, 'Okay, I can be the artist that I want to be, and as long as the music is good, people will accept me. It doesn't matter who I am, what I look like. If the music is good, they will like me. The end.'

I'm a pop artist, and that's what I'll always be. I don't want to be a 'credible artist.'

I would rather die than be a serious artist, or a fake artist.

People have mentioned, 'Maybe you should try to be more sexy. Look at how this butt stuff propelled this person to the top of the chart; it's amazing!' And I'm like, 'What if I really want to sing something to people?' I speak my mind. I want to be that person people feel they can listen to.

There's a lot of risk in putting what you suspect you really are into your music.

I think the key to great art and great artists is to just fully be yourself and not be scared of that, and be the extremes of your personality. Show the extremes of your personality and embrace the imperfections. Embrace the things about yourself that you might not like.

I have to live authentically at all times. And that's part of what makes me an artist. I'm not scared to do that.

The fastest way to break the cycle of perfectionism and become a fearless mother is to give up the idea of doing it perfectly - indeed to embrace uncertainty and imperfection.

Lucian Freud's career affirms that the only thing an artist can do is remain true to whatever vision, (lack of) talent, or ideas that happened to pick them in order to be made known to the world.

There have been times when I'm writing about things that are personally embarrassing. Like any human being, sometimes I can't help but wonder - 'What are the people I know going to think about this?' So I have to remind myself that all is permissible. Art has to be a free space. Language has to be a free space.

The only people who have doubts about the sincerity of my music are people who come to it relatively late, off the back of having seen me in a film. Acting is about being other people, and music is about being myself.

Great artists are the ones who have put their entire selves out there to be adored, humiliated, to be picked at, cherished, all of those things, and haven't shied away from that.

It's only at this age that I can say the word 'art' without flinching.

I have to be able to be the artist that I am.

This is the age of insincerity. The movies had the misfortune to come along in the twentieth century, and because they appeal to the masses there can be no sincerity in them.

If the only people we seek to impress are within our own ivory towers of artistic excellence or our hallowed institutions, we will find the audience is gone in 20 to 30 years. I find as I keep a broader audience in mind, I choose to sing and say more things I actually want to share and fewer things just for the sake of impressing others.

Once you decide that it is the art that is important and not how popular and well received you are, you no longer have an albatross.

I could never deny myself bein' an artist.

In any piece of art, the artist pours themselves into it. It becomes a reflection of who they are and what they believe. That's what it has to be. Otherwise it's just a product.

I don't think you're selling out by allowing the masses to love your art. The only curse is that, when you get so big, sometimes people forget to look at the music.

For me, there's no point in being an artist and putting yourself out there if you're not going to really put yourself out there.

As an artist, you need to be true to yourself and free and not put yourself in a box that contradicts with what you feel is needed for a song.