Let’s start with, um, my process and how it’s been different. Songwriting has been the biggest thing. So, almost every record on this project that you heard started with just the guitar. Matthew Morgan, my manager, told me that if the song doesn’t sound good with just you and the guitar, everything else is just makeup. And that kind of really hit me like. I said to myself, “I would really like to improve my songwriting abilities.” And I took three years to do that.
And although it has a lot of hip-hop influences, all the songwriting followed a pop structure. So that took a lot of learning, and that was the most incredible part. It was exciting. I felt like I wasn’t the smartest in the room anymore, and I got to learn again. And that was really, really, really, uh, incredible and, and enticing to feel.
There are so many influences, but if I can name some immediately, Nipsey Hussle, Amy Winehouse, Prodigy, Bob Marley, and A.R Rahman are just a few. And in terms of an artist that feels like a kindred spirit of mine, it’s got to be Bob Marley. In no way, shape, or form do I think that I should be compared to him because that man was incredible, but just spiritually, he made so many positive vibrations, and he represented a culture. It was a time when nobody gave a fuck about reggae, and he didn’t care. He just kept doing it. And now it’s one of the biggest genres on earth. He just stuck to his convictions. I love any artist who sticks to their convictions, and I have a soft spot for people who had to do it the hard way because that was just their upbringing.
And that’s how I feel. I’ve had people offer me to do a bigger record in India. I’ve had people ask me to do a full Bangali record and things like that and it’s not that I don’t, and not that I won’t — I will, right? I love my culture, but I am from Queens, and to do that wouldn’t be a full representation of who I am, and so if my journey takes a little bit longer in order for me to show off the diversity I come from, so be it.