Rokia Traore quotes:

Going back and forth between Western Arabic and African countries clearly created the various musical backgrounds I could have and obviously influenced my professional attitude, my way of approaching both music composition and singing, particularly phrasing.

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

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

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 loved music - listening and playing - but of course I could not imagine I would be a professional musician. It really happened step by step.

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.

For me, each time I'm on stage, each time I'm working on a new album, it's like a dream. I can't believe it's happening.

In general, in painting sometimes people like Picasso or somebody are not very well known in the beginning, sometimes they become well known just before they die, or sometimes after they have died. I think these people start to be artists after they've stopped existing.

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.

Sometimes there are painters or very famous artists who start to become artists after they are dead because an audience or a public know about their art after they die.

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.

The most important thing is to be happy myself with what I am doing.

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.

I used to play guitar for myself and write lyrics and listen to different styles of music.

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.

At the beginning of the tour, I arrange the live show exactly like the album, but of course from one audience to another, from one venue to another, it can become longer.

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.

I can change the arrangements on stage while I am playing or singing, doing signs to the musicians to change things because the audience is dancing or singing with us. That's the interesting part of the live show, actually, because everything is possible and everything can change.

I can introduce new parts because when you are on stage in front of a very happy audience or people who love what you are doing, you are able to do extraordinary things that you yourself didn't think you could do before.

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.

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.

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

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.

I'm in a state of my life when the essential is very important to me. I don't like long songs with complicated arrangements and breaks anymore.

My influences are jazz, blues, European classical music; they are rock music and pop music. So many kinds of music. World music from different countries like India and China. I think that would be a shame not to take advantage and do something... not unique, because I don't have this pretension.

Of course I am stressed after I finish working on an album about what an audience will think, if it will be successful or not.

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

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

There are some things around us that are not actually useful. I didn't know that before. It's very new for me to understand. That became my way of writing: I can see also the new myself.

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.

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

When you are able to make a living with your job as an artist, that means you have an audience and you have to thank this audience.

When you have a chance to be an artist with an audience in your lifetime, you have to say thanks to your audience. That's a great thing. That's the best thing that can happen to an artist.

Without an audience, all your dreams will not come true at all, because you need an audience to write new songs and continue to do music.

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

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