I think it's a mistake to work on success in career. I've worked on my passions obsessively. How can I say what I want to say more precisely than the last time I said it? Success is such an elusive concept. When you work for it, I think you get it in a way you might regret it.

It's not longer 'Look what I can do, I can do it better then you.' It's just I am.

To reach your goal authentically is probably, in the end, going to mean much more to you than having reached it in a false way.

I'm not about trying to get and get and get. I feel good when I get, but I kind of feel better when I give.

It was interesting to find how dominating American vision is all over the world. I think there's something to be said about the world's mindset and its economics and all of that, and I think it affects the way we see ourselves and it affects music.

It is the very survival of the streets that makes children pick up guns in Somalia, not some older, wide-eyed rebel leader. My intimate experiences during these years are something which I have shared with people through my music but am very careful about how they are addressed.

The people of Somalia just do not have a voice. They are to me the most forgotten people in the world.