I used to play guitar for myself and write lyrics and listen to different styles of music..

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..

My influences are jazz, blues, European classical music; they are rock music and pop music. So many kinds of music. World music from different countr….

Going back and forth between Western Arabic and African countries clearly created the various musical backgrounds I could have and obviously influenc….

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 ….

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

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 c….

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

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

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..

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 wr….

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

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 fes….

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

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 ….

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..

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..

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 ….

The fact of playing an instrument and singing... that I can try to make my dream of singing and becoming a professional musician come true is linked ….

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

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 o….