In Bed with Anika Moa

..surprisingly mesmerising... In Bed with Anika Moa contains some universal lessons about creativity. Sometimes you can't force it and it is only by letting go — or giving up — that the inspiration will flow. That's what happened with Moa after she gave up her dream of breaking into Australia. One minute she was saying "I can't write any songs, I'm completely useless", the next, music was pouring out of her.

– NZ Herald critic Deborah Hill Cone, 5 December 2010

My dad … he put a guitar in my hands and said 'play the guitar', so I started playing it. My mum was in a band as well, so every Thursday, Friday, Saturday I’d go to her gigs with her, and watch her, and just be in awe of her! I used to think she was like Madonna! A superstar.

– Anika Moa talks about her parents and her musical lineage, Audioculture, 9 June 2015

I want to do the dishes and have babies...that's what I want to do.

– Anika Moa feels her passion shifting away from her career

I wanna tour, that is all I wanna do. Okay, I'm in Melbourne, I love it here and it's really beautiful...I've got no friends but they'll come...but really I'm not happy unless I'm touring.

– Anika Moa talks about her nagging ambition to tour Australia

At the moment my confidence levels in myself are so down, like all of a sudden I don't think I'm very good and like I listened to my album the other day and went 'it's not even very good...it's shit'.

– Anika Moa goes through a period of self-doubt and confusion in Melbourne

I don't want to be branded as a Māori singer-songwriter, I don't want to be branded as a lesbian singer-songwriter, I don't want to be branded as a woman singer-songwriter...I want to be branded as a singer-songwriter.

– Anika Moa fires up at the suggestion she promote herself as a lesbian songwriter

I fell in love with her the minute I saw her and I've never, ever felt like that.

– Anika Moa on the moment she fell in love with her first wife Angela Fyfe (aka Azaria Universe)

I wrote it in an apartment we were renting ... I was going to the gym quite a lot, and being really healthy, and not drinking. I quite enjoyed the whole process, except for the writing! I was like ‘I’m bored, I’m lonely’, and it pushed me to write that album.

– Moa on writing her 2009 album Love In Motion, Audioculture, 9 June 2015

I'm the worst form of homophobe, I can't believe I was so against the fact I was attracted to women for so long. But it's also my upbringing, it's also the people I was hanging out with and it made me so ashamed of who I was.

– Anika Moa reflects on finally accepting herself as a lesbian woman