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I never looked at people or singing as commodities.

I have never had a great love of the music business, I never have.

I never expected to make a lot of money from music.

I don't think my music's as traditional as people make it out.

Negro music and culture are intrinsically improvisational, existential. Nothing is sacred. After a decade, a musical idea, no matter how innovative, is threatened.

I've always treated the music business as a business.

I used to think that, given enough goodwill, anybody would be able to 'get' any music, no matter how distant the culture from which it came. And then I heard Chinese opera.

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

Music is always going to be only as sophisticated as the culture that consumes it.