"Ella Fitzgerald - I love her voice! She's very strong, she's beautiful. The words are so poetic, the image of the blue moon. I like to listen to those women [Nina, Billie and Ella] because they're very relaxed when they sing. At the same time, there's something boiling inside. I recognise myself in them because when you listen to my records, I'm a very relaxed girl, very simple. But behind all that kindness, behind the soft voice, there's something very heavy. I'm still in love with this feeling. They've got the real blues - the blues voice, feeling and soul."

"My number two movie is Otto Preminger’s Anatomy of Murder starring Jimmy Stewart — one of my favorite James Stewart performances. He’s the country lawyer, so all those folksy tricks that Jimmy Stewart uses just really come into play here– ’cause he’s also so bright, you know? He’s the brilliant, folksy country lawyer. And Lee Remick is in it, in the flower of her youth. Bra-less and in Ray-Bans — you know, who doesn’t want [to see] that? And gosh, Ben Gazzara in a really neurotic, strange performance. I think it’s the screen debut of George C. Scott as the young lawyer from Lansing, MI, who takes on this case; and he’s — it’s just brilliant courtroom stuff. Murray Hamilton — who plays the mayor in Steven Spielberg’s Jaws — he’s the bartender, and he’s wonderful; it’s a great turn. And the music: Duke Ellington and Ella Fitzgerald, so it’s a great jazz score. The Jimmy Stewart character tinkles on the ivories and he plays a little bit of jazz sometimes as a kind of hobby, so that justifies the score. But that’s a great film — black and white, beautifully shot, underrated. Almost a perfect film."

"Erykah! I love her! From Nina Simone, Ella Fitzgerald and Bille Holliday I learnt about jazz music. And the sound was quite strange to my ears. It's different to Malian music. It took a long time for me to accept the sound. But Baduizm was something else. Music is about frequency and these frequencies - the way she sings, the arrangement, the groove - I'd never heard this before in my life. This album totally changed my life. I realised that music is infinite. Because I come from Mali, we're not used to listening to many types of music. We listen to African music, from Senegal, Benin, Guinea. But most of the time we only listen to Malian music. You grow up with a Malian sonority. So Erykah Badu for me was a new world. It was a trip. I had to adapt to accept it and once I accepted it, I went deep inside it. It had a strong influence on my music, the way I write now. There's no limit. I don't compose just music from Mali. I like to be open, to experiment."