I love the idea of a record containing an entire universe; where the sounds span decades of recording from all over the world and all sorts of different sources.
I don't purchase records. I do enjoy listening to things like Japanese folk music or Indian music.
For me, there's a lot of intrinsic mystery and power in folk music, but a lot of people don't perceive that music from around the world as something that fits into their lives or their psyche in any way. So I tried to present it in a different way to give it more of a chance to sink into people's heads.
We've incorporated different sounds from different countries and genres, and we've explored widening the range of our music.
When I do uptempo songs, I like to bring in the funk and world music and different elements.
In L.A., we listen to everything. If it's banging, it's banging - we don't care where it's from.
I grew up partially with classical music but listened to a lot of rock when I was young - I like acoustic, and folk from Mali and Armenia and Turkey.
We used to play a lot of Fela Kuti in the early days of hip-hop. In my DJ sets I'll jump off into rock, salsa, African. I like to play some crazy stuff and see the vibrations of the people.
I would find myself being inspired by things that I've heard as a kid: Nigerian music or African music, some French music or some Jamaican music. When it's time for music to be made, it's almost like my ancestors just come into me and then it's them.
My sons are my friends, too, and they have introduced me to new technology and new sounds from around the world. I have learnt a lot from them.
I mix Indian instruments with Western instruments all the time.
I've been very lucky early on to be surrounded when I was a child by music from various countries. My parents would listen to a lot of music coming from other universes.
My taste in music originates from my culture and heritage, and from traveling the world and listening to all kinds of fun sounds and bits.
I don't like most world music because you need to know what the words are to really understand it.
I think we're about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.
My CD collection has a lot of world music - lots of Indian, African, Portuguese, Greek, Italian music. Because of my husband, a lot of jazz, too.
