I enjoy meditation. I think the artist's position is often to mend the things we feel are broken. Whether that's between two cultures or two thoughts. We're always trying to reach, trying to expand something.

It was interesting to find how dominating American vision is all over the world. I think there’s something to be said about the world’s mindset and its economics and all of that, and I think it affects the way we see ourselves and it affects music.

Hip-hop in Africa has been very often a duplication of an American experience, but in a context that’s totally alien to it.

I wasn’t making music consciously when I was younger. I was a musician, but that has its own stigmas. Anywhere on the planet, it’s one of the more undervalued positions.

It’s not longer ‘Look what I can do, I can do it better then you.’ It’s just I am.

I think it’s a mistake to work on success in career. I’ve worked on my passions obsessively. How can I say what I want to say more precisely than the last time I said it? Success is such an elusive concept. When you work for it, I think you get it in a way you might regret it.

I enjoy mediation. I think the artist’s position is often to mend the things we feel are broken. Whether that’s between two cultures or two thoughts. We’re always trying to reach, trying to expand something.

I’m not about trying to get and get and get. I feel good when I get, but I kind of feel better when I give.

In the time of war, everyone was basically trying to live and manage the best they could. But you also had another period which was not a hard time at all – it was just a beautiful time. I lived in both eras. I got to fully experience and appreciate both the tragedy of Somalia and the beauty of it.

It was not my dream to be an artist. How could it have been? I thought, artist, much like a leader, was something you either were or weren’t. Never something you set out to be.