Creativity Quote by Deborah Cox

Reverence is an unfashionable word in pop, where everyone is supposed to act like a peer and every era flattens the last into a playlist. Deborah Cox choosing it anyway is the point. In one line, she draws a bright boundary between the churn of celebrity and the old-school gospel of craft: Patti (read: LaBelle, a template for vocal athleticism and theatrical authority) and Tina Turner, the hard-earned archetype of survival turned into spectacle. Cox isn’t just naming influences; she’s locating herself inside a lineage where the voice is an instrument you live in, not a vibe you market.

The phrase “when I’m in their presence” does a lot of quiet work. It admits proximity without claiming parity. She’s close enough to meet them - meaning she’s earned a seat in the professional room - yet she refuses the cool-kid posture of acting unimpressed. That humility is strategic as much as sincere: in R&B and soul, legitimacy still flows from elders, live performance, and the kind of stamina those women represent. Cox’s subtext is, I know what it costs.

There’s also a gendered undercurrent. By singling out women who were routinely underestimated, exploited, or caricatured, Cox frames reverence as solidarity. Not worship from below, but recognition between working artists of what it took to command a stage, keep a career, and make power audible.