"Nâ Hawa is an icon. She's still alive, she's younger than Nina Simone. For me, she's an example because she's one of those artists who started to push the female voice in Malian music. When I watched her videos when she was super famous in the past, I could never imagine that I could live like her. She's got the blues too. She never knew her mum, she passed away when she was giving birth to her. She always sang about tragic things but from her I realised that you can sing about your problems without complaining. She never complains, but she tells you her story. She was like a philosopher. She talks about normal life, how you can love each other, how you can live in peace, even if you've had bad experiences. She's a mum to me, in terms of writing. She always wrote about women, children, society, but with some beautiful melodies."

"I came across this on the way out to Hoboken to play Maxwell's, and my manager, Geoff Travis, gave it to me as a gift and we put it on the CD player in the van. I was very touched by his gift - he'd thought to give me that record, I was very moved by that. I knew Nina Simone obviously, but I'd never heard her sing like this. It just turned my head - I'm not sure how it's influenced me as a songwriter or as a musician, but again, another album of just classic songs, one after the other, and so much attitude, so much fucking fire. I think, for me, her questions, her lyrics, were just fantastic - from 'Do I Move You?' all the way through. It was a real learning curve of growing up - there's a lot of wisdom in these songs and also a lot of diversity. The music's also pretty hard-hitting: a lot of groove in there, a lot of amazing rhythm. Just an unusual, really surprising record."

"Ranks with the best of Hitchcock, who wanted to make it but Clouzot beat him to the rights. It was made in the same year as Night and Fog and The Night of the Hunter, 1955—what a year, what a decade for world cinema. The penultimate scene had the same effect on me as Psycho. Though it no longer holds surprises for me, I watch it for its mastery of suspense and the performances of Paul Meurisse, Simone Signoret, and
 Véra Clouzot. But I confess that the nine-minute scene without words where 
Véra hears noises from her bedroom, goes down the hall to check them out, and is literally scared to death still nails me. You can bet I thought 
about how it was shot and paced when I sent Ellen Burstyn up to that attic in The Exorcist. No nudity, no sexuality, no violence, just pure, slow-building suspense that escalates to terror. The original novel was written by Pierre Boileau and Thomas Narcejac, who also wrote Vertigo."

"Both Maxwell Kardon and I were really into 'Short People', it's just a weird hit that's skewering racism and I think also one of those funny hits that are misunderstood. It might be banned by certain radio stations for being offensive because people just didn't get it. It's sort of like Ronald Reagan used 'Born In The USA' as his anthem [but] Bruce Springsteen's like, "I hate you!" Just the idea of that song being banned is so funny to me. We were inspired by the production and arrangements of the songs. There's the song 'Baltimore' that Nina Simone also does a cover of, but I think I prefer the Randy Newman original. It was a big sonic touchstone for us, as far as the drum sound on the songs that we rip off, on 'Fathers And Brothers' at the end, that sort of piano part that we pretty much stole from 'Baltimore' and the Little Criminals album. I like the fact this guy was an off-kilter songwriter and was definitely not afraid to make a song that had a historical context and call it a pop song."

"This album is flawless. From production to writing to everything, that album is just good. There is not much more to say about it than that album is fucking perfect. Some albums are just perfect. Amy Winehouse Back To Black is fucking perfect. The Miseducation Of Lauryn Hill album is perfect. It won eight grammies or something. Start-to-finish, every song, literally every single song, is a number one. Not in the terms of success, but sonically, it's solid songwriting at it's best. From production to writing, to delivery, to performance, stylistically, I could sing that entire album, it's just so perfect. It's like eating the most well-rounded meal, all of your favourite foods from start to dessert, everything is your very favourite, cooked exactly the way you want it to be. Sometimes I'll put on that album and I just can't believe how easy it is to explain, because it's just so fucking perfect. And the way she came off Fugees and did that was so cool. She is a badass. She is so unapologetic. Oh I love her. She's my generation's Nina Simone."

"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."