and then i did my master's at goldsmiths university in dundon and then i came back to new york to live there around two thousand point two thousand and five and i've been living there since i've been travelling a lot but i've been very like living in new york since two thousand and five so i write i act i produce i do all kinds of stuff i kind of like so the line between journalistic work and narrative work i also  hall which was a saturday that evening and it was beautiful i have been supporting it appears for seven years now and that's when i met jane and young mr founders of them and then yeah we had our second fundraiser here in seattle and it was huge huge huge huge i don't know if you guys were there but it was amazing to see you know the room full of like it depends and seattle folks in one i think it's you know it's interesting to kind of just understand them understand them also because i didn't really grow up with the same privileges and opportunities that we have here so ye about human rights so when i had to choose basically before between the forming arts and international relations i chose international relations so now but now it's kind of like just flying and together kind of beautiful i think what makes me more alive like the most alive is being on stage that's when i just it's beyond it's beyond space it's beyond time it's something that you know i can get i don't really have words for it it's just like an it's a more questions there's two things i'll say the first name is this thing i heard from a guy named derek series actually where he's talking about pottery you know like how to become a good product he broke like an entire classroom of people class make as many pots as humanly possible don't even worry about what they look like how they turn out i'm just going to grading on the way how many pots you can make and then after the class was over he brought in like a group of people  didn't know who made what and where the best pots and they all came from the side of me the most amount of pots how that relates to music and where i get my ideas from and how i write is that i've just been doing it for so but i'm just listening to the songbook and when i'm really like in my zone i'm really creating the most amount of pots it's humanly possible it's like i just hear the lyrics and i trust myself and i trust my instincts and i trust my impulses  it's tough it's tough to do an independent film here in the u s so it's hard to raise money here for an independent film and the films that are being made are not shown in cinemas so it's really tough from the very beginning advice for any filmmaker but really i think when you want something i think there is a way there's definitely a way and i think now  infrequently and really investing in the country and i think that is going to play a huge part in the film industry in ethiopia but there's a lot of changes i mean a few years ago there wasn't there wasn't like you know so many production think for a lot of people that i know so i do i do know that we have enough resources within our own community to give back to people back home absolutely question that so it's very very specific and you meet other ethiopians you know what's going on but feel free to actually be like hey i'm having this future event whatever that is i'm having this program for the youth in seattle and i want everybody to after growing with the magazine for the past seven years and it's really important work i don't think it's i mean i don't believe in like you know local vs global acting locally thinking globally that kind of thing but you know with every other aspect of society and economic growth to political stability so i basically said at like nineteen i got my b a when i was twenty that you know i'm going to dedicate my life to literacy and education so and i had this dream about it really do it i research because i really want to have like my own nonprofit organization and then i found it carries and they did exactly what i wanted to do so i was like oh i don't need to get my own path but i just can jump on them and i can do my art stuff so yeah so since then as an author as a writer you know as an advocate for literacy and education and then yeah yeah board member since two thousand and eleven two thousand to twelve and then i did a fundraiser in new york for some friends of mine in two thousand and eleven in december of two thousand and eleven and i hope to do one next year but it's i understand completely that you know most of the board is white  she was like you know like in like a number like in her you know she's so so many ways that you don't see it you don't you know you don't really you know because she looks she is you know white american woman but difference and i think that's why i'm i'm involved and i have loyalty towards them and and also because one of the just in education is my thing so i do encourage others to get involved but i also and i wrestle with that a lot actually i feel like at this point you know like seattle it's seattle is always going to be home it's it's changed so much especially in the last couple years that  one of the ways i find it ok to like leave here is kind of treat seattle like it's just another city because it's so it's like unrecognizable different than the city i grew up and i want to know and you love it when you can really love you know i mean at the world is big i traveled all over but you know i think that that's why my homes are speaking a language and understanding  in complete transit and just completely free and you understand this is the moment like now i'm in seattle i give you guys one hundred business you know and like you're just very understanding that you know home is here forever your that's good ya so my role in media because it's such a big subject because a lot of people when they when they when they hear of media they just automatically think like all of the news in magazines but music is media film is media are environment other people to just tell their stories like what got me into music is the whole thing about being invisible and not seeing my story anywhere in the mainstream you know so i feel like my role is to find my true voice and completely become it and be as loud and be as bright and be is excellent as i possibly can because there's no because nobody else has my story you know just like nobody has that but otherwise i'm just i'm just creating beauty i think going up in germany ethiopians especially had a negative image and i've been kind of driven by that just to create images that really show the complexity the beauty the diversity of a country that i call home in many ways i got  n and show people what i see with my eyes my experience my whatever it is in a cape in germany in new york so i think yeah just just creating that beauty in a matter how  especially liked coming from the perspective of like eighty painted hip hop artists the underground hip hop artists whatever musicians specifically always feel like they have to live in turn into the on like what i'm doing so much that the alternative to the mainstream becomes what people go to first is just something i'm always going with instruments t what i mean it's the same advice i would give artists here who are trying to make music based on the way they think it will be received never works in my work for money but i feel like there's only really truly only two kinds of music in the world music is timeless music for the time music for the time is that thing that's like real like on the and they're really just honestly making the music that they themselves along to hear those are the change makers those are the times and stations and those are the ones that are the most successful actually it's funny when you look at the most successful artist rs that we influence each other like i cannot just be influenced by american culture i'm influenced by so many different cultures just living in new york and so i think i does is becoming more and more international and there's absolutely no way of just like  cut it out but like someone for instance there's a there's this guy somewhere he is basically like a pianist what's his name you guys know and he has dreads h spiritual experience when you listen to it beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful beautiful read it you know thousands of viewers and otherwise it would have just been like you know another ten or so like really targeting and using whatever through media i think is really really a