It's easy to focus on the differences, harder to find the similarities in people.
If it's in your personality to get out and talk to people, then you get to see what it is that city has to offer, through the people. A lot of the times with your own eyes you don't get to see that.
I feel like I've been blessed to be able to travel with this music, so I always try to get down with the locals.
Nobody's perfect but I definitely strive.
I think Islam, for me, helped me see how similar we all are. If my views are not traditional it's because of being raised in American society. Things that are taboo in an Islamic society are magnified in this society: drinking, extramarital affairs, all kinds of stuff like that. I have to apply the human aspect of all our culture dictates . . .
I try to really take my art serious, and pay attention to detail.
I'm a believer in that you can't really choose your audience, your audience chooses you.
I try not to be preachy, I just try to deal with people on their own level, not to try to talk down or up to a person.
I'm a city boy by nature - that's a big-ass oxymoron - but I do appreciate nature to the fullest because they say if you wanna see God just look around. We can't make this, it's all creation, so I appreciate that.
I'm a painter, that's what I love to do first and foremost.
A lot of the time in music you get to see the place you play, or around the place you play, but that's it.
