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.

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

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

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.

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

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

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.

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.

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.

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

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.

But as i lay there, it only seemes like silence filling my ears. And the thing was, it was so freaking loud.

That's always the worst: the not knowing. Because then you're stuck with a hundred questions no one can answer.

He who fears something gives it power over him.

I get up between 6:30 and 7 A.M., and my morning routine is always the same: hot water and lemon, eggs on toast and rose oil on the face.

There are certain records that you love because the songs are great, but you don't go to them as an example of great production.

I had rather believe all the Fables in the Legend, and the Talmud, and the Alcoran, than that this universal frame is without a Mind.

I've always been an encourager at heart.

It's a funny thing with documentary films - you want them to feel as entertaining and as gripping as a fictional film. With a fictional film you want it to feel as realistic as a documentary film.

Joy is a sign of generosity. When you are full of joy, you move faster and you want to go about doing good to everyone.

What if I travel so far away in my dreams that I can't get back in time to wake up?