French, German, English and Spanish are four admirable languages and I manage to express myself in all of them with more or less skill.

I sing in the language of the Heart. It's an invented language that I've had for a very long time. I believe I started singing in it when I was about 12. Roughly that time. And I believed that I was speaking to God when I sang in that language.

I always greet people in my language because I believe that cultural diversity is as beautiful as biodiversity, and that is reflected in language.

The thing is I'd always felt very drawn to my roots. In fact, I've always felt this real homesickness for my country and my native language, Eton. When I was growing up I made my mother speak to me in Eton all the time - that way, over the years, I haven't lost touch with the music of my mother tongue. All the time I was singing backing vocals for other artists, I'd be singing and writing material for myself too. I'd write my songs in French, English and Eton. Then one day I was going through my material and I realised that most of the stuff I'd written was in Eton. This material formed the basis for my first demo tapes which later got worked into my debut album "Tribu". Around the same period I was already getting interested in bikutsi - that's a type of music from central and southern Cameroon which nobody was playing in Paris back in those days.

Translation: As many languages you know, as many times you are a human being.

Autant de langues que l'homme sçait parler, autant de fois est-il homme.

As for the French language, it's probably one of the most beautiful in the world. I speak a little bit and I can follow conversations, but I think it will take time to improve myself.

Man is multiplied by the number of languages he possesses and speaks.

I wrote too many poems in a language I did not yet know how to speak.

I bongo with my Lingo,
Beat it like a wing yo
From Congo to Columbo,
Can't sterotype my thing yo

I am for polyphony: there can be many, many different languages. Considering all these current divisions between ethnicities and religions, it’s madness to have a state, and I really don’t understand the joy in forcing people together.

Language is its own music.

For a writer, to change languages is to write a love letter with a dictionary.

Cinema allows me to be surrounded by different people and to spark my curiosity about all the cultures of the world. I have a fascination for languages