There is a congratulatory culture in the Gulf. From birth onwards, there is a culture of giving people trophies as markers of achievement for making it through society. It's cementing allegiance to authority at a very young age.

This has always been my problem with genres is that they've turned into marketing tools. I've never been a person that allows themselves to be in any kind of box and I think that genres can be used as tools to define BPM or something but I think they're suffocating of music and other art. And I think they're inaccurate when they come to describing my work. Maybe other people like defining it, but I don't.

I feel like I got my first real taste of Caribbean and Cuban culture while I was there. I have quite a sizeable Cuban vinyl collection from Miami thrift stores.

My music doesn't exist in a vacuum; there's a script and there's an actor and it's about to come together.

I've never been to China. I only know what the West is telling me about China.

I only have a Bachelor's Degree but I've had professors who have instilled this kind of academic rigor in me where I don't make any generalizations or closed statements. There always has to be room for interpretation.

I've been exploring gender performativity in the Gulf since I was a teenager. I'm not a gender anthropologist, but I feel like there's an extreme binary between femininity and masculinity in the Gulf. From a young age, I knew I didn't want to be part of it. Gender is a huge gray area, and the problem with defined roles is that they cover up undefined ones.