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

I'm writing from a place of - a center of authenticity, somewhere that only I know how to write from.

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.

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.

The pirates are serving a purpose right now. They come from regions which have been completely ignored, and Westerners have tried to destroy these regions by their constant plundering of resources and by the illegal dumping of nuclear waste. The pirates really began in order to discourage these actions - initially. And then the business became lucrative.

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 faced quite a few challenging times, and in front of those, I was more positive than some people not facing those conditions. I'm actually of the belief now that it is that struggle that offers you that open-hearted hope.