K'naan Quotes

Even some of us who make movies underestimate their influence abroad. American movies sell American culture. Foreigners want to see American movies. But that's also why so many foreign governments and groups object to them.

One thing that is not to be underestimated is American culture's influence on the rest of the world.

American time has stretched around the world. It has become the dominant tempo of modern history, especially of the history of Europe.

We are guilty for sending teams into foreign countries to advise them how to be like us.

I mean, the nation in which we live - and the world in which we live - is so extraordinarily more like a future than the futures that we're being sold on the screen and on television.

We have a lot of American TV in Australia. I grew up watching 'Seinfeld,' 'The Simpsons' and those prime time TV shows over the years that feature grown-ups and high school kids. We had a saturation of American voices.

You know, every country needs another country to mock, and Australians seem to be pretty good at impersonating American people. Maybe it's because all the movies and music and TV you see there is from America, so we just have the knack for it.

The United States influences government and life everywhere else.

Foreigners have a complex set of associations in their minds when they think of America - from Iraq to 9/11, certainly, but also from Coke to jeans. It is entirely possible for people around the world to love American products, American books, American movies, American music, and dislike the policies of the government of America.

I think it's that thing of growing up all the time watching American movies and listening to American music. It hits you in a way that's a lot purer because you are not in that culture that you're watching.

Much of the history of the 21st century, for good or ill, will be written in Asia.

It is likely that America will be more important during the next century or two, but after that it may well be the turn of China.

From jazz, the blues, country and rock to Hollywood movies, culture has in many ways been our greatest export (or our most obnoxious one, depending on your point of view).

Well, I think by and large, certainly in terms of cinema, American culture dominates our cinema, mainly in the films that are shown in the multiplexes but also in the way that it has a magnetic effect on British films.

We are a G20 country. One of the biggest world economies. We're in the middle of three continents. Changing Saudi Arabia for the better means helping the region and changing the world. So this is what we are trying to do here. And we hope we get support from everyone.

A lot of my work reflects the incredible influence that America has had on contemporary African culture. Some of it's insidious, some of it's innocuous, some of it's invisible. It's there.

America's definitely a trendsetter, and it's where a lot of information goes out to the rest of the world.

The new sound-sphere is global. It ripples at great speed across languages, ideologies, frontiers and races. The economics of this musical Esperanto is staggering. Rock and pop breed concentric worlds of fashion, setting and life-style. Popular music has brought with it sociologies of private and public manner, of group solidarity. The politics of Eden come loud.

It's super trippy coming to America because we know everything about it - from music and film. I know what a Southern accent sounds like; I know what a New York accent sounds like.

Imagine a world where Apple, Google, and Intel were Chinese companies. It would be scary.

If there is cultural imperialism, it is definitely American.

Britain has always been a nation with a strong global focus. We have influenced change and built strong ties all round the world.

In 'National Geographic,' you always saw pictures of tribal Africa. And here I am, sitting in Nairobi in our suburban house, watching TV and thinking, 'Why is it always going to be these tribal people 'that are the ambassadors of our image?

Hip-hop basically controls the world through fashion, through music, through language, through culture. It's basically running the world, no matter what anyone wants to think, and that's just the way it is.

The creative industries, a source of optimism in recent years owing to, among other things, a resurgence on the world stage of British music, have come out foursquare against Brexit.