Youssou N'Dour

“Music is a language.”

“I can assure you that I have never used my media companies for propaganda, and I will never do so.”

“I have to protect my family and have a life with them that is completely private.”

“When the slaves left Africa, they left us this music. They left us blues.”

“World music is about taking things from different places and bringing them together - which is great.”

“Travel teaches as much as books.”

“I don't want to see that two-tier Senegal, that two-tier Africa, when you have those at the top and those at the bottom, people who are hungry, people who do not have enough to eat.”

“In the West, you have always associated the Islamic faith 100 percent with Arab culture. This in itself is a fundamentalist attitude and it is mistaken.”

“Western record companies haven't always dealt with African musicians in the best way. Giving them a lot of money and telling them they're going to be bigger than Phil Collins is the wrong way to do it!”

“The question of modernization is central to disturbances in the Middle East and in Africa. Everyone is after modernization, no matter where they come from. But you have to be careful about it, and more importantly, you have to have sense about it.”

“I respect music, I do. I love it.”

“Islam has been badly used by a certain ideology.”

“In politics, sometimes you have to lie, or you make a promise that you cannot keep.”

“I grew up with reggae music.”