You are damned and praised, or encouraged or discouraged by those who listen to you, and those who come to applaud you. And to me, those people are very important.

I see other black women imitate my style, which is no style at all, but just letting our hair be itself. They call it the Afro Look.

I have one thing in common with the emerging black nations of Africa: We both have voices, and we are discovering what we can do with them.

my thoughts are like quick little fish that swim out of my grasp.

I have to go and say farewell to all the countries that I have been to, if I can. I am 73 now, it is taxing on me.

African music, though very old, is always being rediscovered in the West.

I do not sing politics. I merely sing the truth.