Education helps you to be a well-rounded person, period. It teaches you how to take in information and data, process it, and use it for life building. Education was key in my family. You were going to college.
When you win a Grammy... you're thinking about you winning. It is amazing. Your peers and folks in the record business are saying, 'This is what we think of you.' And that's why the Grammy will always be, to me, the ultimate in what you get as far as a music trophy, because it is the one.
I'm very involved with kids because after being a teacher for seven years, I just can't stop loving the kids. I am a teacher forever.
Gospel is just the truth of the word of God. Anybody can sing it, anybody; anybody can perform it.
Tramaine Hawkins has been a mentor, a confidante and an example of greatness. She has been through a lot in her life, and her career has spanned over 50 years. To me, that's what you call a legend.
When I write a song, it comes from the heart and is based on a specific experience. You can't really say that one experience is greater than another, because all of your experiences take you through life on this journey.
I truly do have the most amazing child on the face of the earth. I know all parents say that about their child, but Taylor truly is special.
I started out in a professional choir at 13 years old. We traveled to different places, and I had a close relationship with the leaders of our choir. We were recording when I was 15, so it wasn't like I had to wait until 25 to find out certain things.
There is a sound that comes from gospel music that doesn't come from anything else. It is a sound of peace. It is a sound of, 'I'm going to make it through all of this.'
Good food is healthy food. Food is supposed to sustain you so you can live better, not so you can eat more. Some people eat to live, and some people live to eat.
I truly believe that my songs bring the answers and the solutions, as opposed to just talking about the problems. My music at its core is joyful.
Education helps you to be a well-rounded person, period. It teaches you how to take in information and data, process it, and use it for life building. Education was key in my family. You were going to college.
I was brought up by great parents and great grandparents who told me, 'Never, ever think that you're better than anyone else or that what you do is so important that the world won't miss you once you're gone,' and I kind of translate that into the stardom thing.
Of course, my faith has a lot to do with being able to be public without being a public nuisance.
I think more people in the mainstream, folks like Nancy Wilson and Luther Vandross, they have openly expressed their love for God, and when mainstream artists start expressing their love for God openly in their concerts and including gospel songs in their concert, and, you know, people started embracing it.
I do a medley of hymns in all of my sets, whether I'm in an arena, in a theater, in an amusement park.
Luckily, I don't have to be anybody but Yolanda, because people don't expect me to be anything other than who I am. For an artist, it's a great place to be.
I cook everything from Italian to Cajun food. I have now mastered the roux for gumbo. I love cooking.
You can live a wonderful life, you can love God with all your heart, and you can love your husband or wife very passionately and have a balance in your life. I live by balance.
