The idea that something is uncool because it’s old or foreign has left the collective consciousness.

I'd love it if American kids were listening to Muslim music.

I suppose I am reluctant about being any sort of 'star' and I didn't particularly want to be portrayed as one.

Art is not an object, but a trigger for experience.

People assume that the meaning of a song is vested in the lyrics. To me, that has never been the case. There are very few songs that I can think of where I remember the words.

Well, I am a dilettante. It's only in England that dilettantism is considered a bad thing. In other countries it's called interdisciplinary research.

When you look back on a historical period of music, it seems so obvious to you what the characteristics of it are, but they're not obvious at the time. So, when I look back at my own work, I could easily write a very convincing sort of account of it that made it look like I had planned it all out from day one and that this led logically to that and then I did this and then that followed quite naturally from that. But that's not how it felt.