So it might look right on the outside, but is fundamentally flawed. The idea of the American Dream for black America was one built by pictures of looking at the idea of what America was supposed to be, without actually having the tools to do it successfully. There’s a song called “Built by Pictures” that explains that. These are stereotypes that you hear, but in fact if you understand the history of our existence in this country, you see that many of these things are systematic, inherited, and passed down. I wanted to serve as a vessel to encourage people who think opposite from one another to give each other the benefit of the doubt, and to do my best to stimulate conversation and dialogue with subject matter we can all relate to but may not have an in-depth understanding of.įor example, there are plenty of people who judge the economic situation of black America on the surface, and think that African-Americans are materialistic and in debt and manage money poorly. I have such a wide demographic that listens to me, in terms of age, gender, race, religion, and many of my listeners may be on opposite ends of beliefs, but will have my music in common. This record is trying to encourage people to think critically. How is your latest album, The Iceberg, different from what you’ve put out before? What’s new about the story you’re telling today? It works in cycles of sound, of subject matter. What’s old is new again right now.Ībsolutely. It’s interesting how those have all come back into vogue recently. What artists were formative for you when you were starting out?Ī Tribe Called Quest was one of the first records I bought as a child for myself. Yet whenever I would rhyme-at the lunch table, or on the school bus, or in our neighborhood-it was the one thing that, every time I did it, people asked me to do it again. Rap was also the thing that people would tell me I was good at. In my last year of high school I discovered rap music production. I actually didn’t want to become anything other than an illustrator. People can always hear a bit of themselves in my music no matter where they come from. My music has a level of connectivity with people regardless of their background, and I think that comes from me being an amalgamation of so many things.
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