A Quote by Youssou N'Dour

My music is like a spinning ball. It can turn in one direction, and then it comes back to origins. — © Youssou N'Dour
My music is like a spinning ball. It can turn in one direction, and then it comes back to origins.
I'm in the game of spinning plates. I'm spinning a boxing plate. I'm spinning a Tae Kwon Do plate. I'm spinning a Jujitsu plate. I'm spinning a freestyle wrestling plate. I'm spinning a karate plate. If I was to put all them down and have one boxing plate spinning, it would be like a load off my shoulders.
I feel like I'm strong enough that I don't have to do anything to turn on the ball. When I do that-when I'm ready to take the ball up the middle, when I'm willing to go the other way-that's when I can turn on the ball.
When the ball was hit, my first reaction as a shortstop was always go in the direction of the ball. You can't do that at first base. You go too far in that direction, and it's hard to scurry back and be ready to pick the throw.
When I was really little I would sit in the back of my dad's car when he'd be playing old-school music. He'd turn down the music and turn around and I'd be singing and know all of the words but I didn't even know how to talk. From then on I've always wanted to be a singer.
Changing the direction of a large company is like trying to turn an aircraft carrier. It takes a mile before anything happens. And if it was a wrong turn, getting back on course takes even longer.
I turn sentences around. That's my life. I write a sentence and then I turn it around. Then I look at it and I turn it around again. Then I have lunch. Then I come back in and write another sentence. Then I have tea and turn the new sentence around. Then I read the two sentences over and turn them both around. Then I lie down on my sofa and think. Then I get up and throw them out and start from the beginning.
I find the ball, and I think, 'Where's the ball going, and where do I need to go?' It just puts me back in the game, and it's the simplest thing, but it's become sort of like my soccer mantra. I simply use the ball as my focus point and move back into position, and the distracting thoughts disappear, and I'm right back in the game.
Cats are too independent. They piss me off. They play when they want, and then they turn their back on you. Dogs, you throw the ball, and they bring it back, tongue hanging out, tail wagging. Cats are like "Not right now, too busy." Definitely a dog man. Except when it comes to cleaning up after them! Cats win that!
Some comedians you work with, they only turn on when the camera turn on, and they're like sad-faced clowns when the camera's off. And then, they come alive when the camera come on. And you be like, "Oh, damn. You're not a depressed ball of depression, but you are actually funny."
The world of time, of space and condition, pleasure and pain, birth, growth, maturation, decay and death, spinning, spinning, spinning this world, always spinning.
In my opinion, it seems like music is taking a bit of a turn. Look at Mumford and Sons, and the Lumineers. It seems like people and music fans are enjoying the more artistic side of music, and that popular music is taking a turn and accepting that, so I appreciate that.
Chemistry is really about two people who like to act together, I think. It's like tennis in the most cliched way. It's like if you hit the ball, they hit the ball back, and they don't hit it into the stands, and they don't put the ball in their pocket and walk off - and they don't argue with the umpire, you know?
When I first started to get into writing, it was via music. I'd generate ideas for songs that would turn into stories, then they'd turn into novels. I was biased toward music.
That's sort of what I try to do with music: to harness whatever energy is already there and see where that momentum takes me. Sometimes you're spinning that oncoming momentum in a different direction, or sometimes you're coercing it to consider itself, or sometimes you're holding it up to a mirror. But I don't really like to interrupt and come in and destroy everything and start all over. I'm not that kind of guy.
I always threw the ball in, because then if I got the ball back, I was the only player unmarked.
Back in the day, music imitated life. Now it's the opposite way around: life is imitating music. It's like whatever the rappers say, people think that that's how we're supposed to be; but back then, we kind of looked at the streets, and we made music for that.
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