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 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.
thinking trying
You just have to try before thinking that you can't.
thinking personality way
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.
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.
successful thinking stressed
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.
thinking people able
I can introduce new parts because when you are on stage in front of a very happy audience or people who love what you are doing, you are able to do extraordinary things that you yourself didn't think you could do before.
thinking festivals way
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.
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.
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.
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.