Jamila Woods

Me and my three younger siblings, we sang together in grandma's church, and I was in the Chicago Children's Choir in high…

— Jamila Woods

My mentor made me say a poem over and over. 'Stop! That's not your voice. Start again.' I was sobbing by the…

— Jamila Woods

Music is something that is supposed to connect people on a pure level.

— Jamila Woods

The lake was always my orienting point when my dad was teaching me how to not get lost. The lake is east,…

— Jamila Woods

They say Chicago is for haters. No one will just sweat each other and say, 'Oh, you're so good,' if you're not.…

— Jamila Woods

I read 'Song of Solomon' by Toni Morrison in college, and it just blew my mind.

— Jamila Woods

I really value what Closed Sessions is doing to build the Chicago music scene and am excited to partner with them for…

— Jamila Woods

In some ways, I value specificity. I think that there's power in, once you know who your fan base is, being able…

— Jamila Woods

A lot of people get Chicago wrong. I've developed this protective feeling about how we're portrayed, and at the same time, I'm…

— Jamila Woods

My mentors were very good.

— Jamila Woods

I think of music as creating a space. I like to put things in that are comforting to me and are nostalgic.…

— Jamila Woods

I don't know if it's because I grew up in Beverly or my friends, but I listened to a lot of alternative…

— Jamila Woods

My hope is that 'Blk Girl Soldier' is a freedom song for black women today who are fighting the macro- and microaggressions…

— Jamila Woods

I like to borrow forms and quotes and use a lot of allusions, in both poetry and music.

— Jamila Woods

I started writing poems on a Xanga page. I always loved writing. I also had a Deviant Art page, actually, because my…

— Jamila Woods

The good things about Chicago save me on a daily basis, like getting to work with my students, seeing a beautiful part…

— Jamila Woods

I love how music and chants were used in the Civil Rights movement to help people keep marching. How songs were both…

— Jamila Woods

Naming something, putting it on record, in a lyric, feels like affirming people. Ideally, that's what politicians should want to do: to…

— Jamila Woods

I don't create from a place of me making art for art's sake, but wanting my work to actually do stuff... tangible…

— Jamila Woods

Part of what I like about living in Chicago is it's not easy. The breath of the city, the everyday challenge of…

— Jamila Woods

I hold strongly to my identity as a Chicago artist and want to do whatever I can to participate in creating a…

— Jamila Woods

When it's a rapper's album or a singer's album, there's a tendency to want a text-based or theme-based narrative.

— Jamila Woods

For me, church was about not only religion but about community. A woman in my grandmother's church helped pay for my SAT…

— Jamila Woods

My entrance to music was singing gospel in church, and to hear that gospel language in a hip-hop song was cool.

— Jamila Woods

I spent a lot time with my siblings because there weren't too many young people on our block. We were our own…

— Jamila Woods