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
thinking musical important
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.
important important-things
The most important thing is to be happy myself with what I am doing.
important well-known great-experiences
It's a great experience just to understand that finally being well known is not the most important thing.
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.
hardly
A melody without the right rhythm hardly exists.
call discovered family genres music musical
Not what you would call a musical family, but my father used to play saxophone, and I discovered many genres of music when I was a child.
course happened imagine loved music playing
I loved music - listening and playing - but of course I could not imagine I would be a professional musician. It really happened step by step.
country people trying
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.
thinking unique trying
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.
unique thinking way
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.
country unique thinking
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.
father interesting together
The interesting thing for me is to put together all my influences and all my experiences I got through my traveling with my father.
writing way knows
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.
guitar play sound
Of course the folk guitar is the one I play very often, but I wanted a more electric sound.