This is a tradition of resistance to the term that's as old as the term itself, especially because that term has been used to commodify and reduce black creativity, and also to appropriate and sell it. That's what John Coltrane said in an interview with a Japanese journalist: "Jazz is a word they use to sell our music, but to me that word does not exist." And he's treated as one of the central figures in the history of jazz. So if he rejected it, then why is it weird when I do it? I'm in the tradition!

With electronic music it's often a little more hidden - the relationship between gesture and sound - which makes it confounding for audiences. But the ingredients of electronic music are the same ingredients of nonelectronic music.

I make a lot of music with other desis - that's hugely important to me, but it can't be the sum total of who I am and what I do. It's not accurate; it doesn't reflect my life experience.

This is the last sentence of my dissertation: "What is soul in music if not powerfully embodied human presence?"

The sense of having to be the best at everything gets in the way of anybody doing anything. I put all that aside; it's not worth thinking about when I'm there. My agenda as an artist doesn't go away when I teach. It actually gets intensified.

I like the idea of the objecthood of music being destabilized by process and things like improvisation. That's what empowers us; that's how we make each day new as players, as people.

Whatever we can do to just give people a sense of hope in the face of what seems like hopelessness. That's a small thing that an artist can do sometimes.