She’s the Queen of Percussion. She’s a former collaborator with Prince. She’s glamorous and she’s also a recent featured artist in the 2023 American Songwriter Legends print issue. Yes, she’s Sheila E. and she’s a music icon.
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But with so much success and life experience to her name, fans might wonder what the 65-year-old Sheila E. has to say about life and love, family and her craft. For the artist who began her career in the Bay Area wowing new audiences, what are her thoughts on the world at large? Here are the 15 best Sheila E. quotes.
1. “The youth are very important to me, they’re the next generation, but I want to instill in kids, even in playing, that it’s never too late and there’s no right or wrong way to do anything.”
2. “My genre of music is very eclectic. I might play some Latin jazz, or just go into a spontaneous jazz thing. That’s the thing about coming to one of my performances. Not every show is the same.”
3. “The break down for kids is communication. Music helps bring that bond.”
4. “To me, the stage is like my living room, or my home, and when you come over to my house, I have to be a hostess and invite you in so that we can have a great time.”
5. “What drives me is really just being able to be a blessing to someone. I really enjoy that, and as much as I can do, I will.”
6. “Having that music around us all the time, it was so inspiring. But at the same time, I was a kid. I didn’t pay attention to any of it. I’d get on the drums and hit them a few times, and then go outside and play.”
7. “Back in the days, the groups and the bands that we listened to were like Earth, Wind and Fire, Santana and Grateful Dead. We don’t have a lot of those bands anymore.”
8. “Don’t forget, I was a musician long before I ever met Prince. That’s a big difference between me and those other women he’s worked with. We operate on the same plane, as equals.”
9. “Engaging with the audience lets them know I’m approachable. I don’t like that whole, ‘You can’t talk to Sheila E thing’—I don’t like that.”
10. “That’s how we grew up—kinda like Pops would put his drums, his percussion and instruments into the car and we would just go to a facility in the Bay Area and he would say to us, ‘You think we have it bad? There are people worse off than we are. Let’s go give back to the kids.’ And that’s how we grew up.”
11. “I was running track early in my years and I was breaking track records in sprint running. I was training and I wanted to be in the Olympics. I thought I was going to be able to win a gold medal, and my mind was pretty much set on, ‘This is what I want to do.'”
12. “If you are on television, that one night that someone is able to see you, you’re talking about millions of people in one day. That’s pretty awesome because then it helps you to jumpstart your career, and if you’re the one to go out there and perform, people are going to come see you because those millions saw you on the television.”
13. “I like being in the back. I’ve done that for so many years, I’m really comfortable doing it. I don’t like the solo thing as much as I like playing drums behind someone.”
14. “I went to a great church here in L.A., gave my heart to the Lord and felt freedom from things I’ve carried throughout my life that I just thought, ‘I don’t have to carry them anymore.'”
15. “I want to be entertained, so if I want to be entertained, I know if I’m going to play, I want to make sure that you’re entertained and that I’m having a great time. I really do love what I do.”
Photo by Rob Shanahan / Courtesy Kim J PR
