I've got to where I am in life not because of something I brought to the world but through something I found - the wealth of African culture.
My biggest obsession is to show Africans and the world who the people of Africa really are.
I think it is incumbent on all human beings to oppose injustice in every form.
I am a forward-looking person and live in the moment to build for the future.
I lived for music since I could think.
The Afro-American experience is the only real culture that America has. Basically, every American tries to walk, talk, dress and behave like African Americans.
I don't think any musician ever thinks about making a statement. I think everybody goes into music loving it.
I had to run away from home in order to be a musician. Because I came from a family of... my father was a health inspector; my mother was a social worker. And I was pretty smart in school. So they expected me to be some kind of academic - schoolteacher, or doctor, lawyer - and they were very disappointed when I told them I wanted to be a musician.
It's obvious that the rest of the world loves high African culture - African culture, period.
I've always stood on one fact - that all over the world, there are only two things, the Establishment and the poor people. The poor people are a massive majority and across the world they are exploited in different kinds of ways. The Establishment depends on exploiting raw materials and the poor.
I don't think what I do is influenced by suffering. I come from a talented people who are prolific in music and dance.
All my experiences removed geography from my world.
When people campaign for positions, they promise people all kinds of things.
I think that anybody from the 20th century, up to now, has to be aware that if it wasn't for Louis Armstrong, we'd all be wearing powdered wigs. I think that Louis Armstrong loosened the world, helped people to be able to say "Yeah," and to walk with a little dip in their hip. Before Louis Armstrong, the world was definitely square, just like Christopher Columbus thought.
I just came from South Africa, a place that had been in a perpetual uprising since 1653, so the uprising had become a way of life in our culture and we grew up with rallies and strikes and marches and boycotts.
In my view, Africa's real problems are cultural.
I grew up with protests, marches, demonstrations, struggle. But I come from a clan of community workers.
I'm travelling more than ever. I don't have the answer as to why, but the demand seems to have grown as I've got older.
Africa has been troubled for a long time - well, the world has been troubled ever since I was born.
When I left South Africa in 1960 I was 20 years old. I wanted to try to get an education, and music education was not available for me in South Africa.
To tell you the truth, man, we spend most of the time travelling in hotels, in festivals, in concert halls, clubs, airports. The most unenjoyable part is all the security at airports.
I always make the joke that I go home, to one of my homes, to go and do laundry so I can go on the road again.
