Michel'le Quotes

It’s easier to hold onto your own stereotypes and misconceptions, it makes you feel justified in your own ignorance. That’s America. So the challenge for us is, are we ready for change?

Before we can work on the problems, we have to fix our souls. Our souls are broken in this nation.

It's one of many ways that Barack shows me and the girls how special we are. And that's the thing that touches me about him. I don't care what's on his plate. I don't care what he's struggling with. When he steps off that elevator into our residence he is Barack and dad. And there's just those little things that you do that remind you, that you know, I still got ya.

Changing the big picture takes time.. and the best things to do is focus on the things that we can make in our lives if we're doing all that. That becomes the collage of real change

I can't think of any time we had a discussion [with Dre] about the aftermath of what happened the night before. We just had too much going on.

Here are white men poised to run big marijuana businesses, dreaming of cashing in big—big money, big businesses selling weed—after 40 years of impoverished black kids getting prison time for selling weed, and their families and futures destroyed. Now, white men are planning to get rich doing precisely the same thing?

Well, right now, my music is - it's just happy. I'm not in a relationship, but I know who I am now. I have wisdom. I have the power of knowing who I am. That's huge.

We have this window of opportunity; we have a chance to make something real happen. Something possible happen, to live beyond our fear, think about that, and help us. Help lift us up, help us fight this fight to change, - transform - this country in a fundamental way. This chance won't come around again.

My daughters are the heart of my heart and the center of my world

Studying in countries like China isn't only about your prospects in the global marketplace. It's not just about whether you can compete with your peers in other countries to make America stronger. It's also about whether you can come together and work together with them to make our world stronger. It's about the friendships you make, the bonds of trust you establish and the image of America that you project to the rest of the world.

For the First Time in My Adult Lifetime, I'm Really Proud of My Country

For the first time in my adult lifetime, I'm really proud of my country ... not just because Barack has done well, but because I think people are hungry for change,” she said. “I have been desperate to see our country moving in that direction and just not feeling so alone in my frustration and disappointment.

There are no mistakes in life, and it's not about anybody being able to judge you.

When my mother and my grandmother died three months apart, I knew my world was over.

The beatings, the beatings were so normal to me. The abuse was just routine. I didn't wake up the next day and say, 'Dre, why did you hit me?' We never talked about it the next day. Never.

I'm not all dolled up. We tried to keep it as real as we could. We're telling you something that happened. It's a part of history. I hope this movie [ 'Surviving Compton'] gives you a little bit of me and of my music and my heart.

Someone is going to have to give up a piece of their pie so that someone else can have more.

I had to survive a lot. I didn't premeditate my life. Life just happened as it did. And I had to figure it out as I went along.

For the first time in my adult life, I am proud of my country because it feels like hope is finally making a comeback.

No one country can confront them alone…the only way forward is together.

When I met Dre, N.W.A. didn't exist, nor did Michel'le. And I think we had a chemistry. When started working on my stuff, we created something that was phenomenal.

Dre couldn't have given me those words to write, and he couldn't have given me that voice to sing. I couldn't have given him that musical talent or the ability that he has. What we made came from putting things together. I've always said that.

I'm grateful. But Dre could not have done it without me. And I could not have done it without them.

I was appearing on the reality show R&B Divas and when I started to fall apart it was very public. But I am glad that it happened that way. It made me see myself. And it made me transparent.

Doing reality TV is hard. You get lost. You are shooting three months before anybody sees it. So you are past [the emotions]. Then when it airs and the public sees it, they react and it drags you back. It feels you have grown, but then you suddenly feel like you haven't moved at all.

My most important title is still “mom-in-chief.

One of the things that attracted me to Barack was his emotional honesty. Right off the bat he said what he felt. There are no games with him—he is who he appears to be. I feel fortunate as a woman to have a husband who loves me and shows me in every way.

For me, surviving Compton is surviving the men, because Suge and Dre are from Compton. So in my world, in my mind, I survived their mentality.

What I notice about men, all men, is that their order is me, my family, God is in there somewhere, but me is first.

I know in the movie it looks like my grandmother is condoning it, but she really wasn't. But back in those days, men beat women. She was trying to tell me something without being judgmental, trying to help me understand that's what men do.

There is still a lot of hard work that we as a country need to do. They can't look to any one individual, whether it's Barack or it's the next new hope that's going to appear to be that savior.

I think the first time [Dre] did [biten me]. We cried together. I assumed he did. I assumed that would be the first and last time. I learned that it wasn't.

Then instead of introducing Dre as the guy from N.W.A., Jerry Heller would say Dre was my producer! Dre would come to my interviews with me - he'd come to all these places that would never have had the guy from N.W.A. Wasn't it genius?

Do you see how Jerry Heller made it work? That is how he combined what we did to make the rap music into mass music. That's exactly how it happened.

I call his ['Straight Outta Compton'] story a Disneyland because it's an illusion. It is how he wanted it to be remembered, so that is how he portrayed it. And he had every right to do that. As did I.

We had everything. We were young kids. We were driving cars our parents couldn't afford, living in big houses. For me to sit here and say, "Oh my God, I didn't enjoy any of it" - no, I did. Of course I did.

Rap was forbidden with the people who were interviewing us and the shows that I was getting [booked on], and I had kind of crossed over. So Jerry [Heller, who managed N.W.A.] would tell me, 'Do not say you're a rapper, always say you're R&B.'

In my own life, in my own small way, I have tried to give back to this country that has given me so much,” she said. “See, that’s why I left a job at a big law firm for a career in public service.

When I say I loved it, I don't mean I loved being hit. I just mean...there was some good in there, too. I am not going to call it all bad.

I would go back in time and do differently it is that. I would go back and ask, 'Why?' But I never did. I got up, he got up, we went on about our day. We never discussed the situation [with Dre]. Just, never.

It felt like love to me. It embraced me. I accepted it and thought, "Well, this is how [Dre] loves." I got that from my mother and from my grandmother, who were abused.

I tried to be strong in the face of obstacles.