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.

I wasn't making music consciously when I was younger. I was a musician, but that has its own stigmas. Anywhere on the planet, it's one of the more undervalued positions.

When I get older, I will be stronger

You have to let the world speak to you and then you speak, you know, so I'm in that moment now where I'm finding the world's voice.

Somalis really are very musically sophisticated, and they're about their own thing.

There's definitely anger, the demand of more from the world, a demand for justice. There's no other way I can perform the vocals than the way you hear them. It's not just the words, it's what is being felt.