Latest Rokia Traore Quotes from Interviews

Quotes about:

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Dancing, Interesting, Singing

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Albums, Shows, Venues

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Thinking, People, Able

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

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

  Rokia Traore

  Important, Well Known, Great Experiences

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• You can be a star here in Europe and not be known at all in the United States.

  Rokia Traore

  Stars, Europe, United States

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Dream, Believe, Albums

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• The audiences are really different in general. Even in the same country or in the same city, from one venue to another, the audiences can be totally different.

  Rokia Traore

  Country, Cities, Different

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Thinking, African Music, Festivals

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• Without an audience, all your dreams will not come true at all, because you need an audience to write new songs and continue to do music.

  Rokia Traore

  Dream, Song, Writing

  Source: pitchfork.com

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Artist, Chance, Thanks

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Jobs, Mean, Artist

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Art, Sometimes, Very Famous

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Artist, Thinking, People

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

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

  Rokia Traore

  Artist, Audience

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• The most important thing is to be happy myself with what I am doing.

  Rokia Traore

  Important, Important Things

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Successful, Thinking, Stressed

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• Everybody does music from his culture and his experiences with his culture. There are not so many people who are interested by the music coming from different countries and different cultures and trying to make music from that, from all these experiences.

  Rokia Traore

  Country, People, Trying

  Source: pitchfork.com

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Thinking, Musical, Important

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Unique, Thinking, Way

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Unique, Thinking, Trying

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

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

  Rokia Traore

  Father, Interesting, Together

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Country, Unique, Thinking

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Writing, Way, Knows

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

• 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.

  Rokia Traore

  Age, Essentials, Kind

  Interview with Stephen M. Deusner, pitchfork.com. March 6, 2009.

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

  Rokia Traore

  Simple, Thinking, Life Is Like

  Source: pitchfork.com