Mali Quotes

Many people love my music. Many do not understand it. In general my music is more easily understood by younger people in Mali, and by people outside Africa.

We need self-confidence in our ability to build Africa. I trust in Mali and I trust in music.

Mali is a very social society. We share everything. I think sharing our resources in music forces us to collaborate more, play with other people more, share ideas more.

Here, let me break it down for you, so you know what I say is true: Teachers? Teachers make a difference! Now what about you?

As I've learned in the past few years, Mali is home to some of the most incredible musicians in the world.

The shame of fools conceals their open wounds. [Lat., Stultorum incurata malus pudor ulcera celat.]

We have oral traditions in Mali, and songs are passed down and around this way. I think in the US you can play all the time in your own room and never see another musician your whole life. We can't understand that in Mali.

Shaped like Texas, but twice as big, Mali is one of the poorest countries in the world. It exports almost nothing - mostly just cotton, gold and livestock - and doesnt have enough money to import much of anything, either.

There are markets extending from Mali, Indonesia, way outside the purview of any one government which operated under civil laws, so contracts weren't, except on trust. So they have this free market ideology the moment they have markets operating outside the purview of the states, as prior to that markets had really mainly existed as a side effect of military operations.

We do not have a South African as a member of the African Commission. The President of the Commission comes from Mali, the Deputy comes from Rwanda and then we have got all these other members, ordinary commissioners. There is no South African there. And the reason, again, for that is not because we didn't have South Africans who are competent.

A man in Mali told me that there are seven senses. Everyone has five, some can use their sixth. But not everyone has the seventh. It is the power to heal with music, calm with color, to soothe the sick soul with harmony. He told me that I have this gift, and I know what I have to do with it.

Some members, like Britain and France, are ready, willing and able to take action in Libya or Mali. Others are uncomfortable with the use of military force. Let's welcome that diversity, instead of trying to snuff it out.

There is no book so bad that it is not profitable in some part. -Nullus est liber tam malus ut non aliqua parte prosit

How bitter it is to reap a harvest of evil for good that you have done! [Lat., Ut acerbum est, pro benefactis quom mali messem metas!]

Great teachers will never be able to make up for bad parents, nor should they be expected to.

And there are also languages that divide nouns into much more specific genders. The African language Supyire from Mali has five genders: humans, big things, small things, collectives, and liquids. Bantu languages such as Swahili have up to ten genders, and the Australian language Ngan’gityemerri is said to have fifteen different genders, which include, among others, masculine human, feminine human, canines, non-canine animals, vegetables, drinks, and two different genders for spears (depending on size and material).

When Manuel Valls says there's nothing to understand because "understanding is justifying," he echoes back to Georges W Bush's logic in 2001. When François Hollande says "they are attacking us because of who we are," what does it say about victims in Mali, Baghdad, Ivory Coast or Turkey?

I have the mohawk,even though people still call it the mohawk I say "I don't wanna be disrespectful to the Mohican Indians but there is a tribe in Africa called the Mandinka warriors." They're in the west coast of Africa in the country of Mali.I was reading National Geographic Magazine back in 1977, and I saw the warrior standing there with his spear and his beads around his neck and whatnot and the stuff on his ankles. That was what gave me the idea, I said "Wow, let me bring respect to them," so basically what I wear is called a Mandinka cut.

Courage in danger is half the battle. [Lat., Bonus animus in mala re, dimidium est mali.]

Bad mind, bad heart. (Mals Mens, Malus Animus

Courage in danger is half the battle.

I was approached by Oxfam to go to Mali as their ambassador and get involved in their various initiatives out there. But I felt that was missing the point of using me, a musician

I never experimented with the hoddu like I wanted to do. Like on the song "Allah Addu," the hoddu and the voice is something that belongs to West African culture. When you go to the north of Mali, in the past it was just the singer and one instrument player. We never really did have that on our CDs. On some other songs, like "Laare Yoo," we have a whole section of hoddu, something like four of them playing together.

Those organisations, al-Qaeda being the first one, have all settled in areas full of mining and oil resources or in geostrategic zones. They settled in Afghanistan which underground is filled with oil and lithium. North Mali is filled with mining resources (uranium). It is essential to question the impact and role of some international players that create or let those organisations settle there.

When I'm asked about the relevance to Black people of what I do, I take that as an affront. It presupposes that Black people have never been involved in exploring the heavens, but this is not so. Ancient African empires - Mali, Songhai, Egypt - had scientists, astronomers. The fact is that space and its resources belong to all of us, not to any one group.