For the first thirty years of my life I exercised very little, and I smoked cigarettes for ten or twelve years, and I ate junk food. And I began to see some elders in my community’s health decline, and I didn’t want that to happen to me.
Everything in life influences my music.
Creating the record is like digging up the earth, planting your seeds and waiting to see what happens.
I have always wanted to do an acoustic record from the very beginning of my career. I was a coffeeshop artist where everything I did was acoustic.
I was raised playing music in coffeehouses and I feel that was the foundation for my career. I think it is important that we remember where we came from.
As things grew for me I felt like I was losing myself and wanted to stay true to myself as well. I didn’t want to lose any connection I had with the audience. I felt small on a big stage and I felt like I was peaking generically to an audience.
I aim to write songs in a way that you don’t have to have gone to Ghana to relate to it, you really just have to have a heart.
When we all sing in unison – sing in harmony – things come to us on levels that are much deeper than can be seen by the naked eye. Much deeper than even our subconscious. Things are happening.
When I have a breakthrough in music and I hear the melody in my hands: that’s when I get compelled – something in my gut just has to rise up and sing and put something to that.
I really want to be able to keep going and I realize that in some aspects I’ve got to treat myself like an athlete.
If i were to lose my memories, I would rely on music. There is so much of my story embedded in each.
I feel like I write the same album every time but each time I try to convey the message more simply.
Through my years as a writer, I’ve learnt how to simplify the message and pen songs that have a more specific quality – it’s not just about my ego and trying to meet girls.
When you choose to be a loving person, it’s magical how love comes back to you and brightens someone’s day, changing your mood and that of the world.
I get tired of the same albums, the same look and singing the same songs. When I get bored I paint, I plant trees and just do something different. I get far away from singing.
Performing live is like harvesting your crops and sharing your food with people.
Music is my way to shine back and express positive vibrations for a common healing. It’s similar to farming, or surfing, or yoga. Before world peace, we have to have inner peace and music helps us get there.
Another year is fast approaching. Go be that starving artist you’re afraid to be. Open up that journal and get poetic finally. Volunteer. Suck it up and travel. You were not born here to work and pay taxes. You were put here to be part of a vast organism to explore and create. Stop putting it off. The world has much more to offer than what’s on 15 televisions at TGI Fridays. Take pictures. Scare people. Shake up the scene. Be the change you want to see in the world.
Sometimes it may seem dark, but the absence of the light is a necessary part.
Let go the thought that cannot make you strong.
And it’s our God-forsaken right to be loved.