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

I think about all these influences and musical cultures, then the opinion of the audience is of course important, but when I'm working on an album or a new project, I'm not all the time thinking about what the audience will think about it.

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.

My father was not able to get all the vinyl he used to listen to with me. He couldn't travel as he did it because of his profession as a diplomatic career.

Going back and forth between Western Arabic and African countries clearly created the various musical backgrounds I could have and obviously influenced my professional attitude, my way of approaching both music composition and singing, particularly phrasing.

Traveling changed my personality and gave me ability to do the music I do and to think in a certain way that everything can be possible.

I can change the arrangements on stage while I am playing or singing, doing signs to the musicians to change things because the audience is dancing or singing with us. That's the interesting part of the live show, actually, because everything is possible and everything can change.