Rokia Traore
Rokia Traore
Rokia Traoréis a Victoires de la Musique award-winning Malian singer, songwriter and guitarist, born in Mali as a member of the Bambara ethnic group. Her father was a diplomat and she travelled widely in her youth. She visited such countries as Algeria, Saudi Arabia, France and Belgium and was exposed to a wide variety of influences. Her hometown of Kolokani is in the northwestern part of Mali's Koulikoro region...
NationalityMalian
ProfessionMusician
Date of Birth26 January 1974
artist audience
An artist who doesn't have any audience is not an artist.
art sometimes very-famous
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.
dream song writing
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.
thinking artist people
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.
artist chance thanks
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.
this-life happenings new-things
We're repeating the same things all the time; there aren't many new things happening in this life.
age essentials kind
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.
simple thinking life-is-like
I prefer simple things - monotone melodies repeating the same things all the time. Because I think life is like that.
self-confidence needs mali
We need self-confidence in our ability to build Africa. I trust in Mali and I trust in music.
country attitude musical
Going back and forth between Western Arabic and African countries clearly created the various musical backgrounds I could have and obviously influenced my professional attitude, my way of approaching both music composition and singing, particularly phrasing.
dancing interesting singing
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.
song long important
I'm in a state of my life when the essential is very important to me. I don't like long songs with complicated arrangements and breaks anymore.