Creativity Quote by Abbey Lincoln

There is a whole career’s worth of side-eye packed into that breathless, half-finished sentence. Abbey Lincoln is performing a familiar move of veteran artists: refusing the public’s demand for perpetual hunger. “Been there and done that” isn’t just a brag; it’s a boundary. She’s signaling that the old game - hustle, hype, reinvention for other people’s approval - no longer interests her. The point isn’t to be desirable; it’s to be paid.

Then she pivots to money with the bluntness musicians are often trained to avoid. Lincoln names the taboo directly: fees. Not “exposure,” not “the honor,” not the romantic suffering that critics love to drape over jazz. If you want her, you meet her terms. The subtext is labor politics: artistry is work, and a legacy doesn’t exempt you from the rent.

The Madonna comparison is doing double duty. It’s comic deflation and cultural critique: a jazz singer has to justify asking for professional compensation by referencing a pop megastar, because the market already decided whose art is “worth” millions. Lincoln’s quick self-correction - “not that I want what Madonna makes” - reads like strategic self-protection, aware that women who talk money get punished as greedy. The trailing “but I was saying” is the real tell: she’s cutting herself off mid-truth, negotiating how much candor the room can handle while still insisting on dignity.