I learned everything the hard way – like, literally, everything. I know that God does that to people that he has lessons for. I just wish that I had learned less extreme lessons.
When your parents regulate everything you hear and everything you intake, it forces you to get creative in other ways. It sparked the writing bug and the very overactive imagination. Because I’ve had a lot of time by myself and a lot of time isolated from regular culture, I created my own.
I just make music however I feel and pray that it connects, and if it does, I’m super thankful. I think genres are more for other people, not for yourself.
I feel like when you say ‘activist,’ you have to have so much clarity, and I don’t always necessarily have so much clarity on how I want to help others, I just have this weird, deep urge to help other people. I’m trying to let God guide my body and use it as whatever kind of vehicle or vessel it needs to be.
There’s something different about growing up black and Muslim, especially in New Jersey. It’s like when I left the mosque and I left my dad, I felt unprotected, but I also felt a weird sense of pride, like I was involved in this other way of living that was cool to me.
