It's important to interrogate history, it's important to document history, because as a society we need constant reminders of the things that we've done in the past in the hope we can stop repeating these horrible lessons.

New York is beautiful, but [the South] makes it look like a wasteland.

Someone can do anything they want to you on the outside, but whatever they do to me they cannot destroy what's on my inside. Mentally that cannot be taken away from me, no matter what someone does.

The saxophone was created to mimic the human voice and I think that's why I gravitated toward the saxophone eventually. I'd loved the clarinet, but there's something about the saxophone that just grabs you.

I love working with my hands. The computer has taken over my life in a way that makes me really uncomfortable. I'm trying to find a happy medium that gives me freedom but also still goes back to the idea of craft.

When you read enough stories about people who have been through different levels of trauma, and it doesn't matter what the history is, trauma is trauma, there's always this freeing of the spirit.

I love making people sing. I love group singing, sacred harp singing, choral singing, recordings of people singing sea shanties, work songs, prison songs - how people just sang to get through things.