I like to go to old versions and find out what effect beats and scales have on your body, how they can transport you.

In Western classical music the idea of holiness, purity, perfection, and total beauty is expressed through clarity of sound - a bell-like sound. Obviously, that has its own place, and it's a beautiful way of doing it. But I don't think I am the first to point out that in Africa, the more buzzing the sound is, the more it indicates the other world - the spirit world.

I love communicating with people, and sometimes language is not enough. I think that's what poetry is, where you can mess with language and get through to things that can't be described or communicated through regular language or scientific processes.

I have much clearer memories of my time in Egypt: songs on the radio, the rhythms that accompanied belly dancers, the sound of the adhan - the Muslim call to prayer. I just soaked it all up.

I don't want to copy the people I admire - I'd rather find out what inspired them and try to find my own way through it.

In a lot of African instruments, you find a rattle, and sound engineers have a hard time making sense of it.

I think entertainment is a perfectly noble occupation.