Lizz Wright

“I didn't wait around for my parents' opinion about my venture out into contemporary music.”

“Salif Keita's one of my favorite artists.”

“As I grow older, I hope I can fully embody my grandmother's remarkable peace.”

“A lot of people in the African-American community are raised by grandmothers, and that relationship is a special bond and circle.”

“The whole musical institution of the church involves a lot of different styles of communication at the same time. Things like call and response. Sometimes they use the music to pray and work things out. And there's so much repetition in gospel, it's like churning butter.”

“I'm a real Otis Redding fan, and I just think he sounds so good. He sounds like he's always at the end of a long day, and he just won't give up. I just love his wearied devotion - that beautiful, beautiful, weathered sound.”

“I get bored very quickly.”

“I have no ancestral link to the mountains. But I really do feel close to mountain culture. Their ways of food, of thinking. The way they hang out with no recording devices and just sing songs with each other.”

“It's very hard for me to place myself alongside another artist. Everyone has something unique to express.”

“For me, I just want to sing about life. And since I come from a spiritual background, I turned to jazz, because I feel it's still sacred, like gospel. It's serious music, but it allows room to sing about so much other stuff as well.”

“I love songs that create moments that are very personal and that tell a story.”

“My father was very strict, a very militant parent, because he wanted us to be very focused kids. He sold the televisions, so we didn't watch TV. And he didn't want any music playing that wasn't gospel or inspirational music. In fact, he didn't even like a lot of gospel because he thought it was too bluesy.”

“So many great singers we know have come from the church.”

“I'd been trained in choral, gospel, and a little bit of opera.”

“I never left jazz. The relationship between structure and improvisation - that constant conversation and tension - I've always wanted in every genre and song that I perform.”

“I'm a preacher's kid, I'm big-boned, I have giant feet, and I've always been able to run fast, and so I had this sense of, 'I can't fail. I'm invincible. I'm made of green juice and concrete; nothing's gonna happen to me.'”

“By high school, I was putting the music for the services together and teaching Sunday school to everybody's kids.”

“I live just above a creek, and it's always very active. It almost sounds like the ocean. It's constant, and there's lots of big rocks in it, so it's got a great sound. It's one of my favorite things.”

“I think, as singers and performers, we are ambassadors of the human experience. I don't want to get bored just talking about myself.”

“As a southern woman, we often define ourselves by who we are with. But I wanted my life to be built differently.”