Quotes from Youssou N'Dour

I'm a modern Muslim. I pray, and if I have a question, I ask someone who is more educated in the religion than me.

Listen, a lot of religions have fundamentalists.

Senegal needs a renaissance.

I don't want to see that two-tier Senegal, that two-tier Africa, when you have those at the top and those at the bottom, people who are hungry, people who do not have enough to eat.

World music is about taking things from different places and bringing them together - which is great.

I love meeting interesting people and doing things with them.

Western record companies haven't always dealt with African musicians in the best way. Giving them a lot of money and telling them they're going to be bigger than Phil Collins is the wrong way to do it!

Islam has been badly used by a certain ideology.

When I'm in Senegal, I can't just sit in isolation making music. People need my help. And the Senegalese people helped create my music. It comes from the country itself.

I really want to bring the message of love that is Islam to people; bring something new to that familiar face.

I respect music, I do. I love it.

The question of modernization is central to disturbances in the Middle East and in Africa. Everyone is after modernization, no matter where they come from. But you have to be careful about it, and more importantly, you have to have sense about it.

My music is like a spinning ball. It can turn in one direction, and then it comes back to origins.

I think people should know more of Africa in terms of its joie de vivre, its feeling for life. In spite of the images that one knows about Africa - the economic poverty, the corruption - there's a joy to living and a happiness in community, living together, in community life, which may be missing here in America.

Malaria kills and its main victims are children and women. We can stop this scourge so people can live with dignity and go to work and school.

Music in Africa often contains messages. Music in Senegal, and Africa, is never music for music's sake or solely for entertainment. It's always a vehicle for social connections, discussions and ideas.

I have studied at the school of the world.

My father used to tell me about how musicians don't have respect from people and he was afraid about my future.

Africa is the future.