Rokia Traore Quotes

I am consciously not trying to bring in World Music elements. The ways that I work and feel are completely different in how they sound than someone playing the Kora in Africa would play it.

We have songs that are inspired by the Latin side. We have songs that are inspired by rock, African rhythms. Whatever country we go to usually inspires us.

The great thing about the arts, and especially popular music, is that it really does cut across genres and races and classes.

Unquestionably, our contemporary world of music is far richer, in a sense, than earlier periods, due to the historical and geographical extensions of culture to which I have referred.

People say my music is English. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me.

The whole path of American music has been so much about the recognition of stylistic diversity, and the recognition of the importance of music which was from one of the vernacular traditions.

I've been to India, Jordan, South Africa, Namibia, Senegal, Australia, Madagascar, Oman, The States, and a lot of countries in Europe, just to visit... I wanted to make music to connect all of these influences, and make a multicultural music with these experiences.

In such a globally connected world, musicians now have the unique opportunity to express all of the cultural 'mash ups' we are experiencing these days. Akin to the blend of cultures that occurred in early 20th-century New Orleans that led to the birth of jazz, I believe that the world has reached a similar cultural turning point.

I came up playing in both punk rock bands and hip-hop bands, and I found a more universal way of reaching people, especially with music that has a message to it.

I love finding out-of-the-box inspirations and blending them with what I've done in the past. And when I started to experiment with genres, it didn't sound forced. Maybe that's because it's all music that I listened to growing up, and it's all music that I love.

But an innovation, to grow organically from within, has to be based on an intact tradition, so our idea is to bring together musicians who represent all these traditions, in workshops, festivals, and concerts, to see how we can connect with each other in music.

Even the most jingoistic person would have to admit that even American cultural music comes from Europe. That's what classical music is, real European music.

The reflection of the world is blues, that's where that part of the music is at. Then you got this other kind of music that's tryin' to come around.

And it's very strange, but I think there is something very common - not only in Celtic music - but there is a factor or element in Celtic music that is similar in music that we find in Japan, the United States, Europe, and even China and other Asian countries.

I try to steal something from the great singers. Of course, I don't want to imitate their sound, but I try to do a sort of compromise.

It's the coolest part about writing music. I don't know how other people work, but so much is derived from some amalgamation of all these different songs that I love. That's why they jump all over the place.

Music has always been transnational; people pick up whatever interests them, and certainly a lot of classical music has absorbed influences from all over the world.

I think we're about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.

Progressive music probably wouldn't even really exist if not for the people of the United States having picked up on it and nurtured it in the way they did. It really is an American form of music in the sense that it was nurtured here. So it belongs here. It has become part of the fabric of American musical culture.

The Band is probably the ultimate example of people taking all kinds of music, from gospel to blues to mountain music to folk music to on and on and on and on and putting them all in this big pot and mixing up a new gumbo.

I want to put my vibe and my feel of music into an album and have people from different places around the world feel that and hear that.

Musically, New York is a big influence on me. Walk down the street for five minutes and you'll hear homeless punk rockers, people playing Caribbean music and reggae, sacred Islamic music and Latino music, so many different types of music.

I see music as one language. If one musical form eats its own tail, it dies. So it needs to be a mongrel, it needs to be hybridised.

You'll find little schools of musicians experimenting with different ways of making music in Brooklyn, all through Manhattan, in Queens, in Jersey, you know? The city is still bubbling with creativity.

I talk about life, and I make universal music with an American style - and that's what I do.