Rokia Traore Thinking Quotations

Of course I am stressed after I finish working on an album about what an audience will think, if it will be successful or not.

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.

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.

In general, in painting sometimes people like Picasso or somebody are not very well known in the beginning, sometimes they become well known just before they die, or sometimes after they have died. I think these people start to be artists after they've stopped existing.

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

I don't think I'm unique or that I'm trying to do something unique, but I feel it is something I would like to hear. This kind of music I would like to listen to but I can't hear very often.

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.

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.

You just have to try before thinking that you can't.

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 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.