My older album was stuck in an old independent label contractual fiasco. There were all kinds of back and forth, push and pull, just to free myself from that so I can make music that gets out to people widely. That was an incredibly difficult time, having to extract yourself from. What you must endure through that process is not an easy thing and I've been going through that for a couple of years. Just the last year I've been free of that.
When you look back at your debut, The Dusty Foot Philosopher, what does it mean to you today?
You know, they say you spend all your life making your first album and it's really true to a degree. It contains so much of myself, my journey, my anger, my discontent in my melodies. It is a real moment in my life. There are certain songs on the album that I play quite a bit to this day, but I also have a constant growth thing that is instilled in me. Although I have a great deal of love for that album, I don't really live with it. I don't really listen to it, you know what I mean? I'll play a few songs from it, but I let it now live with other people and let other people take ownership of it now. It's no longer really mine.
Over the years, you have mentioned three artists as major influences in your career: Bob Marley, Tracy Chapman, and Nina Simone. Of these, tell me how one has impacted your life and shaped your career.
I'll take Bob Marley. I think the amount of impact Bob Marley has had on humanity – just what he's sown and how many generations it has changed and how many people it has raised and how many kinds of causes it has fulfilled – I think that is, like, way more than any musician has ever been in the history of music I think. For me, that is one of the great things about life – we have the privilege to live under the banner in which he's created this music and this ideology and his relentless kind of spirit of justice and so on. I see myself as someone who is a humble student of that world. To have a connection to his world, in a way, for me is incredibly humbling. To have recorded my album in his house and work with his family, his friends and so on is a big thing for me.
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