Hip-hop has been the guiding light of my life as a musician and a music fan. It's the one common thread through all of it from the time I bought my first record probably. It's always been there.

I think sitting in the car with your parents and listening to music is an essential to growing up.

I have some vivid memories of walking around as a child with a cassette tape.

I don't know if I'm attention deficit, but I certainly am easily distracted by other things.

I made a note in my head to be aware of things as they were happening, because they might not happen again. Up to that point, I was not really that appreciative of what was going on, or thinking about documenting life in a plainspoken manner. I was talking about my life and writing songs, but then I would go back and listen and they were about dreams, and legends, and metaphors and that was just not my life!

Its always important to fall back on your instincts and core beliefs and that was pretty hard for me to do but trusting in my self the way I trusted that if I were to sit at a piano for two hours and I was going learn something, that trust I'd put in myself really helped me get through it. For five to six months I just wrote songs and believed they would turn out to be things I could be proud of and be happy.

I really wanted to approach performing live differently than most people who just play guitar and sing.