As an immigrant, you're constantly thinking about how you're perceived on a community level, and a lot of times it's just on a community level.

I engage with New York and America but my parents pretty much hang out in this radius of Long Island where their friends are and where their work is. That's why you have people who have lived in New York for like 20, 30 years who don't speak English. They just live in a Chinese community or an Indian community. More than anywhere you'll find that in Queens.

Once Indians become more visible in pop culture and thus more humanized, then it actually chips away at discrimination. Especially after 9/11, it became important for those stories and that human element, for the Muslim, the Hindu, the Sheikh communities to be heard. That's what I hope I get at with the music.

My parents don't care what Americans think of us; we just care what the other Indian people in our community think of us.

These days I mostly worry ‘bout my bank account/I ain’t backin’ out ‘til I own a bank to brag about.

One thing that's interesting for me is the alignment of the U.S., Israel, and India along Islamophobia and hate for an entire group of people, and India wanting to be like 'Hey U.S., we're just like you! We don't like Muslim people either!' For both parts of my identity, there's that theme of Islamophobia. That's pretty disgusting.

As an immigrant, you're constantly thinking about how you're perceived on a community level, and a lot of times it's just on a community level.