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I've always been interested in any kind of great music, and African music is, I think, the source of it all.

Music in Africa often contains messages. Music in Senegal, and Africa, is never music for music's sake or solely for entertainment. It's always a vehicle for social connections, discussions and ideas.

In Africa, music is for everything, Music was originally used for community. That was what music was for.

There's a similarity between European and North African folk musics.

I've been doing African dance all my life.

I haven't traveled in Africa nearly as much as I'd like to. I've been there a few times, and I'd like to learn more about the various cultures in Africa. But that's the basis point of where all of the music that I love is based upon, from Africa to Cuba to Puerto Rico to South America.

I think music is one of the hero/sheroes of the African-American existence.

African art is functional, it serves a purpose. It's not a dormant. It's not a means to collect the largest cheering section. It should be healing, a source a joy. Spreading positive vibrations.

There are storytelling traditions that come from Africa that are unique from anywhere else.

Hip-hop in Africa has been very often a duplication of an American experience, but in a context that's totally alien to it.