40 Quotes by Rokia Traore

I used to play guitar for myself and write lyrics and listen to different styles of music.

When you are able to make a living with your job as an artist, that means you have an audience and you have to thank this audience.

An artist who doesn't have any audience is not an artist.

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.

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.

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.

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.

We're repeating the same things all the time; there aren't many new things happening in this life.

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.