Age 10. I joined the school marching band as a drummer.
My school had the dopest arts program - the dopest show choir, the dopest marching band. I couldn't sing or play an instrument a lick, but I was just going to fake it till I make it.
I was in every band class I could get in, like after school jazz band and marching band, and that's where I really learned to read music from elementary all the way through junior high and high school.
There's definitely that tribal Africana thing going on in my sound. It's that marching band, second-line music, that Creole-influence in the kick, and the snare that drives everything for me. I think it's really what's separated my sound from a lot of the R&B and pop music out there.
I played the sax at school. I was in marching band.
When I was in the marching band, I used to take my snare drum and turn it over and use my drumstick and scratch on the other side. That was just being creative.
When I was growing up, in L.A., I went to these schools, Fairfax High School, Bancroft Junior High School, and they had great music departments. I always played in the orchestra, the jazz band, the marching band.
In high school, I stole a six-foot submarine sandwich from a banquet room in front of several hundred people. I did it because I was in marching band, and we were promised food if we played, and they broke their promise. It was my first and only heist, motivated by justice and hunger.
Ours was a very progressive Protestant family, but my parents were God-loving rather than God-fearing. We went to church, and I still go with my mum and dad when I return home - it's a family thing. I played flute in my dad's marching band, but I had an integrated upbringing. We had a lot of Catholic friends.
My world was a community ballet school, a marching band, my two sisters and my girlfriends. I played saxophone in the band and was a bit nerdy.
