Quotes

I'm not the type of person who makes a lot of songs in a day just to see which one is the best.

This is the most fun thing in the world to me, making music. Sitting down, I can make songs and not leave the booth, ever, and I love it.

I pick and choose what I want to put on what. Instead of just dropping a single, I like putting projects together.

Some of my songs are turnt up, but that's just 'cause I have to make 'em like that so the clubs can play them.

Growing up in Highbridge was real. Me and all my friends, we never really went to any other places in the Bronx but Highbridge. We always just stayed in Highbridge. It was like territory, to be honest, because Highbridge is like a town.

I was always writing, since I was, like, 12.

You always gonna feel me. That's my main thing. When I'm speaking in my music, you gotta feel me.

Partnering up with the Monster Energy Outbreak Tour marks a milestone moment in my career.

Hip-hop originated from the Bronx specifically; that means everything. I'm down the block from where hip-hop was born and raised, so I'm glad I am here and I'm able to represent New York the way I am.

I found my sound through exploring. I was in the studio yelling, going low, trying things, and that's how I found that I have a lot of sounds.

Everybody was always telling me to rap and freestyle. I used to go to the park and spit on the mic. If I go to the park, they always gonna give me the mic.

The real Annie Malone was not a light-skinned woman.

Madam Walker was a master marketer. But her brilliance was in taking it to another level by training women, by traveling, by making very motivational speeches and by providing independent income for women who otherwise would have to be maids and sharecroppers.

Wearing your hair natural is a positive statement about who you are. It's not a protest to somebody else. It's affirming you.

Madam Walker was an incredible woman, but she wasn't the only one of her time who was. She just took it to the highest height.

Madame Walker was one of the four iconic women who really created what's now the modern hair-care and cosmetics industry, and we know about her in the black community because everybody gets their hair done.

Inner confidence is what makes us successful.

She used her wealth and philanthropy to contribute to Black schools and colleges, she gave the largest gift the NAACP had ever received to it's anti-lynching fund... Madam Walker's life was one of transformation and re-invention.

By 1916, as Madam Walker herself was developing more assertive views on race, she was becoming eager to assume her place alongside Harlem's famous, influential and intriguing residents.

For some people, success is a zero sum game. They think that if they push other people out of the way, fewer people can compete with them. That's one way of seeing the world. It's dog eat dog. It's, sadly, always going to be there.

I know of at least two black women who are billionaires: Sheila Johnson, who co-founded BET, and Oprah Winfrey. And I know of hundreds of black women whose net worth is over $1 million.

If a CEO takes an interest in you and he happens to be an Asian man, then that's great, but as an African-American woman, you want to make sure that if the executive vice-president of the company is an African-American woman that you get to know her.

Many people have told me that once they learn of Madam Walker's accomplishments they are surprised, even embarrassed, that they have never heard of her. But they shouldn't be. Her extraordinary story was simply omitted from the history books.

Both my parents worked at the Madam C.J. Walker Manufacturing Company, with my dad eventually being hired by another company called Summit Laboratories that made chemical hair straighteners.

There is a core of people who know and love Madam C.J. Walker, but there's a much larger audience who don't really know about her. I think 'Self Made' will give people a window into her life.