Cross-Cultural Music Quotes

I grew up learning carnatic music but I also enjoyed english music so I always thought I could marry the two words and we tried the idea once and it was a hit.

I guess fusion would be the best way to describe my music. I think it also goes into the spectrum of electronic and dance with inspiration from Indian folk songs.

And it's very strange, but I think there is something very common - not only in Celtic music - but there is a factor or element in Celtic music that is similar in music that we find in Japan, the United States, Europe, and even China and other Asian countries.

I'm trying to find the balance and do, like, 'Spanglish' music or some songs in Spanish and others in English or do a translation.

It's interesting that music in this country... we sort of sold something to America with The Beatles and they sold something back. And we've never been afraid to embrace American style rock 'n' roll and make it our own over here.

We are all human, and we are all able to listen to music that we cannot understand. I used to listen to English music like Notorious B.I.G., and I didn't know what he's talking about in all of his tracks, but I'm a fan. It's rhythm and a groove that makes me dance, so I'm convinced that my music can work in the U.S.

When I was still back in Cameroon, because I didn't know English, I used to listen to French rap all the time and then a little bit of American hip-hop. And then, when I got to the States, that's when I really got into all those guys - Lil Wayne, Rick Ross, all those guys.

I might sing a gospel song in Arabic or do something in Hebrew. I want to mix it up and do it differently than one might imagine.

He thought what a fine thing it was that people made music all over the world, even in the strangest settings – probably even on polar expeditions.

Samba rhythm is a great one to sing on, but it's also got some other suggestions in it, an undercurrent of being primitive - because it is a primitive African, South American, Afro-whatever-you-call-that rhythm. So to white people, it has a very sinister thing about it.

I'm a big fan of cultural music, and that's how I try to expand my playing, by listening to music that is not conventionally American.

I try to put a lot of our music in my music - by that I mean of American music.

I was always looking for evidence of these common musical roots, but I was too young to know that what I was doing was called ethnomusicology.

I'm obsessed - not just interested, obsessed - with folk music, street music, the parallels between a country's street music and its so-called classical and intellectual music, the way certain scales have travelled right across the globe. All this ethnological and musical interaction fascinates me. Have you heard any trance music? That's the thing.

I think wherever you go, when people hear good music, they will react to it.

'Makossa' is from Africa, and it means 'dance.' It's also the name for this type of music. In my song, I decided to mix in some Jamaican sounds, like the steel drums.

In the English market, I would love to work with Drake and Rihanna. Who doesn't, right? In the Spanish market, maybe Romeo Santos.

It's very natural for me to sing in English and have a tabla in an arrangement, to have hip-hop beats but sing in Tamil. It's very niche but I love doing it.

Western ears have a hard time hearing anything that isn't in four-four time. A lot of cultures experience music in five-eight, for example, five-four.

I have crazy, different influences in my songs. I want rap music, I want Congolese rumba, I want salsa, I want dance music, I want hip-hop music, all mixed into one!

Always when I write my music, I take my guitar, and I improvise always with a melody, you know, lyrics in Spanish. But sometimes I use some words in English. I don't know why. Maybe because I listen to a lot of music in English.

We used to play a lot of Fela Kuti in the early days of hip-hop. In my DJ sets I'll jump off into rock, salsa, African. I like to play some crazy stuff and see the vibrations of the people.

I don't want to just do what people classify as 'neo-soul' 'cause everybody don't listen to neo-soul. I want to make music for everybody. I'm always trying to incorporate new elements into what I do.

I spent two years figuring out how I could turn it into something that would satisfy me as a musician but also make some kind of cross-cultural link. I feel that I kind of at least touched on the possibilities of cross-cultural music, but it is a lifetime's work, and I don't profess to be anything other than a novice at it.

I'm working on an international album which will be out soon, and Lollypop is gonna be a part of it. I want to let the world know what happens when a desi song is remixed with Honey Singh's English Tadka.