Joanna Newsom Quotes

I am consciously not trying to bring in World Music elements. The ways that I work and feel are completely different in how they sound than someone playing the Kora in Africa would play it.

A lot of people think that because I'm from Malaysia, I'm driven by Malaysian sound, but actually, it's mostly just my melodies.

My music is very global.

My style is a very universal sound, which is very close to where I grew up.

People say my music is English. I don't know what it is. Maybe it's not me writing English music, but that English music is becoming more like me.

Well, Smoke n' Mirrors has very much a world music flavor and it doesn't park itself in one country. It borrows heavily from the Brazilian angle, which is dear to my heart, and I recorded several albums with that flavor.

My taste in music originates from my culture and heritage, and from traveling the world and listening to all kinds of fun sounds and bits.

At first, I found the music I was making really hard to find a home for. I felt like my attitude was really British, but not the actual sounds I was making. Back in 2003, when I made 'Galang,' there were no clubs that had an 'anything and everything' attitude.

I've been to India, Jordan, South Africa, Namibia, Senegal, Australia, Madagascar, Oman, The States, and a lot of countries in Europe, just to visit... I wanted to make music to connect all of these influences, and make a multicultural music with these experiences.

Country is and always will be my heart, but I don't have a problem with it spilling over into pop if it wants to.

My CD collection has a lot of world music - lots of Indian, African, Portuguese, Greek, Italian music. Because of my husband, a lot of jazz, too.

You know, somebody mentioned that I was sort of a jazz-pop singer. And I'm thrilled that somebody would find that, at last, in my presentation, because it's such a part of where I live.

I think we're about ready for a new feeling to enter music. I think that will come from the Arabic world.

The music we're playing now is based on my heritage, which is Russian, Romanian and Hungarian.

I mix Indian instruments with Western instruments all the time.

Some people think I'm a rock 'n' roll musician and some think I'm a jazz musician but, for me, there is no difference.

I think that of my 21 symphonies, each has its own place.

There are a lot of influences from different countries in my music. For example, I chose the guitar in my music, I think that it is a feminine instrument, so when I do not sing, the music expresses my voice.

When I started to make music at the end of the '90s, I saw myself highly influenced by hip-hop and techno, but I wanted to apply these ideas to something from the local sound; something that had identity, that would say who we were and where we came from.

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

All over the world, the idea of creating an melange of international musics, it's a very healthy thing.

Maybe I'm genetically more inclined to music - but the music I make is so far removed from Indian classical music. I grew up in Texas!

I have a very difficult time describing my music. Because I run into people in the hardware store and they go, 'Oh, you're a musician. So what kind of music do you play?' And I go, 'Uh, I've been doin' this for many years - I don't know what to call it.'

I never thought of myself as being the singer that wanted to create an identity and then stick to that.

I am not afraid of European influences. The point is to use them, as Ellington did, as part of my life as an American Negro.