Youssou N'Dour Quotes

I grew up with reggae music.

Malaria kills and its main victims are children and women. We can stop this scourge so people can live with dignity and go to work and school.

Africa is the future.

In the West, you have always associated the Islamic faith 100 percent with Arab culture. This in itself is a fundamentalist attitude and it is mistaken.

Travel teaches as much as books.

I have to protect my family and have a life with them that is completely private.

I love meeting interesting people and doing things with them.

I can assure you that I have never used my media companies for propaganda, and I will never do so.

I don't want to see that two-tier Senegal, that two-tier Africa, when you have those at the top and those at the bottom, people who are hungry, people who do not have enough to eat.

I want to use my music to deliver a political message and sometimes to denounce, but I don't want to be a politician.

Islam has been badly used by a certain ideology.

I'm a modern Muslim. I pray, and if I have a question, I ask someone who is more educated in the religion than me.

In politics, sometimes you have to lie, or you make a promise that you cannot keep.

Islam is a peaceful religion.

When the slaves left Africa, they left us this music. They left us blues.

I have studied at the school of the world.

World music is about taking things from different places and bringing them together - which is great.

When I'm in Senegal, I can't just sit in isolation making music. People need my help. And the Senegalese people helped create my music. It comes from the country itself.

Politics is politics; art is art. If you play a political role, you have to stop being an artist.

Listen, a lot of religions have fundamentalists.

My father used to tell me about how musicians don't have respect from people and he was afraid about my future.

I really want to bring the message of love that is Islam to people; bring something new to that familiar face.

I respect music, I do. I love it.

Senegal needs a renaissance.

My music is like a spinning ball. It can turn in one direction, and then it comes back to origins.

I don't really see myself as an actor.

Senegal needs to free itself, to rediscover its democracy.

I look at my people, and I look at those who control them - the political elite. And the sad thing is that the elites are just not interested in the welfare of the people.