WEBVTT
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The topics and opinions expressed on the following show are
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solely those of the hosts and their guests and not
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those of W four WN Radio. It's employees are affiliates.
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Its employees are affiliates. Any questions or common should be
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directed to those show hosts. Thank you for choosing W
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four WN Radio.
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This is Beyond Confidence with your host d W Park.
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Do you want to live a more fulfilling life? Do
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you want to live your legacy and achieve your personal, professional,
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and financial goals? Well? Coming up on Dvparks Beyond Confidence,
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you will hear real stories of leaders, entrepreneurs, and achievers
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who have stepped into discomfort, shattered their status quo, and
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are living the life they want. You will learn how
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relationships are the key to achieving your aspirations and financial goals.
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Moving your career business forward does not have to happen
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at the expense of your personal or family life or
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vice versa. Learn more at www dot Divpork dot com
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and you can connect with Dvant contact Dant divpark dot com.
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This is beyond confidence and now here's your host, div Park.
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Good Morning listener is so thrilled to be here with you.
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So I just want to share a beautiful story. So yesterday,
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I'm oh, yesterday was Monday, kind of losing track because
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I had gone to Washington, DC for a few days,
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so kind of getting back in the groove and I
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was just checking my LinkedIn messages and I had this
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beautiful message from a reader and she said, Oh, my
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husband introduced me to your book expert to Influencer, and
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I've started.
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It and I'm loving it.
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And that's the reason why I do what I do,
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why I write, why do podcasts, because it is about
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forming that connections. I'm not just talking about making a contact.
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I'm talking about forming the heartfelt connections.
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And it's important that we make that connection.
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Because all of us are united in a way, especially
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with social media and technology, that it goes beyond and
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that brings us back to the kindness circle. So spend
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some time continue building that kindness circle, not only for yourself,
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but for people around you.
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And maybe even for strangers. You never know where and
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how you will impact.
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So if you've not got your copy, please do get
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our copy because it's amazing how the books can impact
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your lives. And for those of you who have got
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our copies, I so appreciate you because without you, we
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will not be able to get the message out there.
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And remember that we spend part of our.
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We share part of our proceeds with our key organizers.
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So so thrilled to be here with you all. And
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let's freaking our guest. Welcome, maya good.
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Day everybody here. Thank you so much for inviting me.
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Oh absolutely, it's just amazing, So so glad to have you.
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And tell us do.
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You recall a moment or a person from your youth
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or childhood who left.
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The positive work on you, who left the positive mark?
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Of course, I'm very thankful in this sense that I
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grew up in a supportive environment. I've always been an
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artist and pursued being an artist since.
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I as young as I could remember, like from age
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of four.
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And I told my parents recently, my mother and my father,
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I said, you know what, I wanted to thank you
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because when I think back in my mind, I cannot
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reach for or find any negative quote or.
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Statement coming from them that.
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Pushed me away from pursuing my dreams or pursuing who
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I wanted to be in the world. And I do
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a lot of encouragement of other people, and I share
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with either close friends or complete strangers things like you know,
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coaching basically, and you hear so many stories. And I
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talk about the voices that dwell in our mind, the
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kind of voices that we walk around with that we
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may never have challenged, those negatives, those voices that the
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judgment voices or the doubt. And I just had an
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epiphany that of the voices that I had to contend
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with within my own mind, I don't have any of
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them negative from my parents.
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And I think that's huge, huge.
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So when you say who might be an early influence, Well,
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of course our first superheroes are our parents, especially my mom.
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My mom is my first superhero and to this.
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Day she still you know, uses whatever en orgy she
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has to encourage myself and my sister and my brother.
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Oh that's wonderful.
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And I have to say that having good parents sets
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the kids for life, and especially artists. I try to
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dottle here there or of course I cannot carry a
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tune in the bucket even if I wanted, And I
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can guarantee you that if.
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I started singing, Rina would leave their room.
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So I'm always very appreciative of artists because, you know,
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art music it's something that has no language to it.
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And it brings us together. So share with us.
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You said that you know, as long as you remember,
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you were artistics, to tell us, like, you know what
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kind of art form was in your life and like
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how did it blossom?
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Well, the most prevalent and the most obvious was singing.
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So I did my first play. It was in school,
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but my first play was also when I was about four.
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I remember being on stage.
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And you know, I would have to memorize and study,
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and then I started to do this on my own,
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just work on songs and try to learn them and
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put all of my effort into makeing it great, and
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then there.
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Would be a perform performance. It would lead up to
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a performance.
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So at the at that young young age, that would
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mean I would work on a song and then I
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would get like a milk crate, a little box, turn
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it upside down, standing in the middle of my parents' friends,
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and then I would you know, unannounced uninvited perform the song.
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So music was definitely like innate.
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You know. I came into the world with that in
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my soul. And then as you've become more conscious of
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what you're doing, you know, you're a teenager, et cetera,
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I started to think about career paths, and somewhere in
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there I was also thinking, oh, well, I like to act,
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and I really love the full body experience of expression
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of expression, and so acting includes that. So I was
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pursuing acting and music. But to make a long story short,
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music is my calling. Music is so intertwined with my soul,
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the way my soul shows up in the world, and
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so that and being a songwriter, being in a position
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to express what I think of the world I see
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around me, and to have the power to respond to
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the chaos of this world or the penes that we
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have endured, and to bring a voice to that. I
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find that as a songwriter and the singer that for
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me that feels so empowered.
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Yeah, and on that is beautiful just the way you
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express yourself. And as you're saying that, you are giving
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voice through your music. And I know that you know
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you have toured forty plus countries and being on HBO,
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MTV and a lot of you've been at very high
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and so tell us about your journey, like you know,
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the rise of that musician, and what were your learnings along?
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What did I learn? You said?
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Yeah?
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Like, no, first, share your journey with us, like you know,
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how did you? Yeah?
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I got you.
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Well.
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The cool thing is that as long as someone is
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willing to be a student, then it is as long
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as you will continue to learn. So I have a
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theory or a philosophy, like a way of life that is,
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as long as I remain a student, I will continue
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to grow and for the extent of my life on
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this plane, right, So I'm always learning.
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So I work backwards from the question that you asked.
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I'm always and I've learned quite a lot of cool
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things going all around the world. I'm an independent artist,
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which means that I operate my music career very much
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like an entrepreneur does. Is it career is a small business.
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I primarily manage myself. I have to book myself, I
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have to create the packaging, the branding and everything. And
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so I'm so fortunate that music is the vehicle that
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has brought me to more than forty countries because being
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in all of these wonderful environments, and those environments are
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incredibly diverse. So let me explain what I mean is
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I have toured all around Europe.
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So let's say places you might.
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Think are obvious, like London, in Paris and Berlin, but
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I've also toured to very unusual locations because i am
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a cultural envoy. So what this means is that the
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US State Department and various American embassies have a budget
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to bring American culture around the world. Be a cultural
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envoy another term that's uses cultural ambassador. I have been
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invited to more than twelve countries at the invitation of
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American embassies, and in those environments, they bring me into
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places that do not have a lot of exposure or
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do not have a lot of favorable.
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Exposure to American art.
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So not only have I toured all around Europe, but
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I've been to places like the Kingdom of Lessutu, which
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is in the southern part of Africa. I've been to
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Honduras and El Salvador. I have been to Surinam, I've
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been to me and mar I have and I'm talking
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about music tours. I've toured at concerts in Philippines, China, Russia, India,
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Sri Lanka, and these are environments that maybe you don't imagine,
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you know, an American artist from Brooklyn generally going. But
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I have been in these diverse environments. So what I
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have learned is how not only that music it is
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a universal language, but also that the divides that we
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are told are between us are so much smaller than
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we imagine.
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We are truly united by a human experience. And I
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mean that being.
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In front of diplomats and royalty to former gang members
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or people in jail who are all connecting to the
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same songs that I'm singing and the same thing, and
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singing along and realizing that.
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We are really in a world that.
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Relies on us staying separated and staying divided. And I
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am able to see kind of like this life is
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a social experiment. My life is a social experiment. I'm
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seeing in all of these crazy diverse environments, how all
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of us are having a human experience. All of us
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want to feel safe, all of us have pain and
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have gone through emotional trials or trauma. And it's not
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so wildly different in Tanzania as it is in Brooklyn.
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MM hm, oh that is beautiful.
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And you mentioned something that you know, you are invited
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by masses to help people connect with the American culture.
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So from your perspective, you know, as you have been singing,
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what would you say for a couple of things that
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you shared connected with people and what would be those elements?
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Okay, Well, I will clarify that as a cultural envoy,
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I'm not really given any sort of directive to make
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people believe in American culture. I personally, I'm already American
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culture in that in the way they view it. Right,
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So I am an artist from the US, and therefore
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I by nature am American culture. So I have never
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been prepped or told, you know, please try to get
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people to understand something or any I was never influenced
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to kind of give any force any perspectives. It's just
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to be myself, Okay. So I'm going to try to
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think of because I have some really cool stories. So
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to answer the question, though, would you like me to
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share a story that specifically shows like American culture.
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Was stories are amazing, like you know, how people connected
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and that.
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Okay, I will tell you as you can tell you
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this one, I'll tell you about my trip to China.
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So when I went.
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To China, I had I had a mo of freaking
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out before I went, because they needed to have translators
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for literally everything, literally everything we needed translation. That means
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every sentence I would say, I would have to stop
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and they would translate, right. So I had an anxiety
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before going, like, how are these Chinese audiences going to
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connect with my unique songs? These are not cover songs,
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my original songs if they can't understand what I'm saying.
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And at that time, I was reading the autobiography of
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Celia Cruz.
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Celia Cruz, of course, is.
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A famous Cuban artist who has traveled all around the