Musician

Growing up, my mom had a catering business. I used to help her pretty early on and loved doing it. My mom is an amazing cook, and she helped me cultivate a love for food. She taught me that food can be beautiful. We eat not just for survival, but we survive to eat. It's part of who I am.

My desire was never to put out albums; it was to do musical theatre!

For me, saying 'I'm bossy' is a cute, tongue-in-cheek way of saying that I'm in control of my life.

My mom was concerned that us four little black girls have a really well-balanced life. She wanted us to be around people like us, but we also went to private school and traveled all the time. Now I fit in most places because I've been most places.

I needed a break, and going to culinary school turned a lightbulb on that I didn't have to make music. The people in the music business forget that not only is there an entire world of people out there who do not care what we do, we are not creating the wheel.

In my life, looking at other women who have been pregnant while writing, I always feel like it's kind of their most musical or the closest to themselves. I think for me it's such a validating moment, you know. I always knew I wanted to have kids, and I've been making music all my life.

Everyone's attention span is getting shorter. As a result, everything - films, music, art - gets watered down and dumber. Every now and again, you get something great, but not often.

I love lifestyle stuff, I love housewares. I'm really a homebody, honestly. Anything to do with my kitchen, or my house, I'm all about it. I'm working on a sauce line, so that's kind of exciting. I'm a saucier.

I don't ever want to part with any of my shoes. They all have a special place in my heart because they say something about who you are today.

I've done a lot of different tours. For me, I try to go on tours that I think are gonna be fun. It's, like, grueling, and it's hard, and there's got to be an element to it that's exciting.

I can't live without Eucerin cream, lip gloss, gum, nail polish, and sparkly things.

I'm a multi-platinum recording artist; my passion is food.

After 'Kelis Was Here,' I was done. I was like, 'I will never put out another record again; I hate this business; I hate all these people.' I was in this race that I didn't even realise that I was in.

I was never an R&B artist. People coined me one, but that's because, especially if you're in the States, if you're black and you sing, then you're R&B.

As a chef, if I can taste something, I can basically figure out what's in it.

The album 'Kelis Was Here' sucked the life out of me, and so I went off and studied to be a Cordon Bleu chef. What's great about food is that it's less about who you know and what you look like, and more about if you're any good.

Am I R&B because I'm black? Am I pop because I have a song called 'Milkshake'? Or can I just be who the hell I am? Good Lord, people make it seem like we're doing heart transplants here, but we're just making music!

Everything I do has a certain quality, a certain flair, a certain flavor. I like to eat the way I like to dress, the way I listen to music: put it all together, and it's a great party.

There's a point where you think, 'What else will I do if I don't do music?' It becomes your identity when it never should have been. But food ignited a fire in me, and I came right back to music because it no longer felt like a job. It was a really powerful thing for me.

As a black artist in America, you know, it is so segregated as far as the radio goes and how they position music on the radio.