There's a big difference between the Arabic and Western scales. One uses quarter tone system and one doesn't. So in order for me to compose real Arabic scale melodies, I would need an Arabic keyboard, and I don't have one. So I had to compose Arabesque melodies.

I feel like there is an emphasis against teaching geography in American schools. Americans don't say, "I'm going to Germany." They say, "I'm going to Europe."

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.

For instance, members of the elite will never allow their children to become musicians normally, because it's - not embarrassing - but it's not done. There's a very famous composer from the '70s from a well-known family that disowned him, and he's a man, so there's this historical precedence with their relationships with musicians - not so much music as it's this abstract thing - but externally with artists.

I was one of five out of 100 people who passed the test, which just proved to me how little Americans are taught geography.

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 still think you people need to be curious [in order to absorb the culture]. You need to search Uzbekistani pop music.