A lot of people think that because I’m from Malaysia, I’m driven by Malaysian sound, but actually, it’s mostly just my melodies. – Yuna
If you just work on that one thing that’s, like, important to you, that has been supportive of you, who has been loving you all this time, if you are able to see that, then that is your ‘best love’. – Yuna
I think feminism is that you just have to stick it all out. I remember this one time when someone interviewed me, and I was young, and they said, ‘Do you see yourself as a feminist?’ And I was like, ‘I don’t know. I’m not really comfortable calling myself a feminist.’ – Yuna
I kind of always struggled writing in Malay, because Malay is such a beautiful language. And it gets really hard, you know, if you want to make it into a song. You have to make it sound beautiful, use the right words. – Yuna
I came from a strong jazz/ singer-songwriter/folk influence, but in L.A., I learned how to have a balance between all these genres and R&B music and hip-hop, mixing them all together. – Yuna
I enjoy fashion and taking the effort to present myself well, and I’m glad that a lot of people refer to me as a ‘Hijabster’. I’m not the greatest fan of the term, but I think girls everywhere should be confident in their own skin and be inspired to look and feel good inside and out. – Yuna
I didn’t expect to have music as my main thing. I always thought I was going to be a lawyer. When I graduated, I was doing really well with my music in Malaysia. I had stable income, and I had really good momentum in the music industry, so I had to make a decision whether to stop that and continue being a lawyer. – Yuna
You learn so much about yourself as an artist. I never would have thought that I could sing every night, you know? Travel and perform every single night, and travel to another city the next day and do it all over again? You learn a lot of new things about yourself, and you make a lot of connections with people. – Yuna
I wasn’t trained to be in front of a camera, so there were a lot of challenges at first. But I didn’t want to be fake. – Yuna
Racism is everywhere – the older generations in Malaysia still say things like, ‘She’s darker-skinned; maybe don’t marry her,’ and it’s very judgmental. A lot of girls do try to get fairness cream to lighten their skin, and I’m against all of that. – Yuna
I was doing quite well in Malaysia… Everyone was so excited about my music, and they started accepting me as an artist. – Yuna
The first time I heard Adam Feeney and Chester Stone Hansen’s ‘Vibez,’ it was used in Drake’s ‘0-100’ as a sample. – Yuna
I grew up listening to a lot of different types of music, and R&B in particular was something that I loved – Aaliyah, Usher, Alicia Keys, TLC. – Yuna
I think you can soften people’s hearts, even if they have a lot of hate. Music can do that if it’s beautiful and honest. If I can do that – soften just one person’s heart – I consider myself successful already. – Yuna
‘Material’ is meant to be a fun, lighthearted song about the tiny bit of materialism that’s in all of us. The message is meant to translate the notion that you don’t need luxury items to feel special; you already are special. – Yuna
I started singing very early. I was six or seven years old, and I was singing along to TV commercials and figuring out, ‘Oh, hey, I can sing in tune. This is really cool.’ But the songwriting thing came much much later, when I was 19 years old. – Yuna
