ROKIA TRAORE

A melody without the right rhythm hardly exists.

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.

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.

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.

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

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 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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

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.

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.

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.

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 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'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.

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.

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.

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.

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.