Rokia Traore Quotes

The interesting thing for me is to put together all my influences and all my experiences I got through my traveling with my father.

American audiences don't react in the same way as European ones to African music because, I think, Europeans listen to this music through all the festivals that exist here.

I prefer simple things - monotone melodies repeating the same things all the time. Because I think life is like that.

The audiences are really different in general. Even in the same country or in the same city, from one venue to another, the audiences can be totally different.

The fact of playing an instrument and singing ... that I can try to make my dream of singing and becoming a professional musician come true is linked probably to the fact that I traveled a lot, which gave me an open mind and an ability to push my limits.

We need self-confidence in our ability to build Africa. I trust in Mali and I trust in music.

Not what you would call a musical family, but my father used to play saxophone, and I discovered many genres of music when I was a child.

A melody without the right rhythm hardly exists.

I've been in contact with music since I was four or five years old through my father, because of the interest he had in music and all his musical skills. I finally managed to make that my profession.

I wanted to come back to the guitar after three albums and almost 10 years. I started to miss this instrument and I wanted to come back to the guitar.

An artist who doesn't have any audience is not an artist.

You can't be unique any way. Music is made from seven notes. You will always come back to something. Even if you think you are unique, you will come back to something that existed before you were doing what you are doing.

You can be a star here in Europe and not be known at all in the United States.

You just have to try before thinking that you can't.

My father was not able to get all the vinyl he used to listen to with me. He couldn't travel as he did it because of his profession as a diplomatic career.

Of course the folk guitar is the one I play very often, but I wanted a more electric sound.

I think about all these influences and musical cultures, then the opinion of the audience is of course important, but when I'm working on an album or a new project, I'm not all the time thinking about what the audience will think about it.

Everybody does music from his culture and his experiences with his culture. There are not so many people who are interested by the music coming from different countries and different cultures and trying to make music from that, from all these experiences.

It's a great experience just to understand that finally being well known is not the most important thing.

I don't think I'm unique or that I'm trying to do something unique, but I feel it is something I would like to hear. This kind of music I would like to listen to but I can't hear very often.

We're repeating the same things all the time; there aren't many new things happening in this life.

Traveling changed my personality and gave me ability to do the music I do and to think in a certain way that everything can be possible.

I don't know if it's due to my age, that I'm older now, [but] I love the essentials. I don't like the things around us that are a kind of mirage.