What Did Aretha Franklin Believe About Struggle and How It Shapes an Artist?

Struggle is not something that happens to you on the way to success—struggle is part of what makes you an artist worth listening to. If your life has been easy, if you've never questioned, never doubted, never fought for something that mattered, then what are you going to sing about? What truth are you going to carry into a room? I grew up watching my father minister to people in pain. I grew up in Detroit, a city of workers and fighters. I lost my mother young. I had heartbreak. I had to navigate being a Black woman in an industry that didn't always value Black women. I struggled with the business side of music, with people who tried to exploit me, with personal relationships that demanded more than I could give. But every single one of those struggles taught me something. They taught me empathy. They taught me resilience. They taught me what it means to hold on when everything is telling you to let go. When I sang 'I've Been Loving You Too Long,' I wasn't acting. I knew that love. When I sang about being a 'Natural Woman,' I understood the power and complexity of womanhood because I'd lived it, not just observed it. The struggle is the credential. It's what gives your art authority. Young artists sometimes think struggle is something to escape, to get past so they can enjoy success. But I'm telling you: the struggle is the material. It's where the songs come from. It's where the truth lives. What separates an artist who's technically perfect but empty from an artist who genuinely moves people is whether they've been tested by life. Have they loved and lost? Have they faced injustice? Have they had to fight for their place in the world? Have they questioned their faith and found it again? That's what I hear in great music—the fingerprints of struggle. My years at Columbia weren't wasted, even though they felt like failure at the time. They taught me what I didn't want, and that clarity led me to what I needed. The rejection, the missteps, the people who didn't believe in me—all of that was part of becoming Aretha Franklin. I wouldn't trade it away. And I wouldn't suggest to anyone that the goal is to avoid struggle. The goal is to transform it. To take your pain, your questions, your survival, and turn it into something that speaks to the pain and questions of other people. That's how art becomes medicine. That's how a voice becomes a movement.