Quotes from Rokia Traore

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

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

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

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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.