The power of the voice in rap is about the expression of truth, rather than the expression of some kind of artifice.

It's important to understand that violent Islam is only one face of violent religion.

We know what war means, and we know what poverty means. We need to develop a better model for reaching out to the world than we have.

The most dangerous thing I've ever encountered was a run-in with Boko Haram around 2007 in a small town in Nigeria. I got caught along with the photographer I was working with, the same one I worked with on the Afghanistan book, Seamus Murphy. We were caught in an attack by a mob after Friday prayers. And the level of violence was so extreme. It was more violent than any other mob violence I have ever seen.

Poetry is a popular genre in Afghanistan. If you turned on the radio, there would be a poetry program that would be as popular as The Real Housewives.

I was examining what religious identity meant in Africa. Along the edge of the Islamic world, what patterns were shaping identity? And the truth is, when I looked at the rise of violent forms of religion, no single identity was prevalent. It's central to note that in Nigeria, that tree is rooted primarily in Christianity. It's not just Islamic militants in the Middle Belt.

Poetry allows me to write about what I don't know, whereas journalism demands a higher level of certainty to be worthy of being written.