I feel like I've been blessed to be able to travel with this music, so I always try to get down with the locals.

I try not to be preachy, I just try to deal with people on their own level, not to try to talk down or up to a person.

It's easy to focus on the differences, harder to find the similarities in people.

I'm a painter, that's what I love to do first and foremost.

I'm a city boy by nature - that's a big-ass oxymoron - but I do appreciate nature to the fullest because they say if you wanna see God just look around. We can't make this, it's all creation, so I appreciate that.

A lot of the time in music you get to see the place you play, or around the place you play, but that's it.

I think Islam, for me, helped me see how similar we all are. If my views are not traditional it's because of being raised in American society. Things that are taboo in an Islamic society are magnified in this society: drinking, extramarital affairs, all kinds of stuff like that. I have to apply the human aspect of all our culture dictates . . .