Amani Media Interview pt. 1 (Self Taught A Capella)

A couple of weeks ago I had the pleasure of sitting down with Caroline Iman from Amani Media for an interview about identity, culture and community. The Interview is in two parts. The first part is an a capella version of one of my favorite pieces and in a way, one of my most personal. That video is shown below. The second part is more of a meditation on who I am as an artist, where I'm coming from, and what's happening in the twin cities as well as upcoming projects to look out for. I'll post that sometime this week.

Self Taught, from my latest solo effort Architextual Design, is an intimate illustration of my spirituality and my growth as a person through different stages of my life. These are true stories (albeit mythicized---yes. mythicized. hah) of my own life from childhood to now. Aquil sets it up perfectly with his own story, an aside of spiritual and intellectual development that shares the power of dreams and self directed learning.

The poetry of this piece speaks to the nature of my approach to education and spirituality; How I've spent my life learning from the world around me more so than from any educator or institution. While I believe it's important to learn from everyone and everything, I hold to the idea that true learning must be driven from the inside out, otherwise it's just socialization stacked against all kinds of other "ations". "Ations" and isms of which churn ugly products into the world around us in all the facets of learning, religion, business, culture, art, family, romance and everything in between.

I hope you diggit. Caroline did a great job producing this. Enjoy.