Nobody looked like me when I was growing up. None of the kids were as big as me, or as serious as me, or listened to the same music.

When someone is themselves through their music, it's soul music. James Taylor is soul music to me 'cause it's just him talking about him. It doesn't have anything to do with black or growing up in the church; it's where it comes from. It's just soul music.

That's the kind of music I want SoulBird to represent: music with intelligence and heart, music that moves people in their souls and their bodies. Music with wings.

For the first ten years of my career, I felt suffocated. People constantly stood over me while I tried to create. And in 2009, I hit rock bottom. I couldn't find myself because I was looking to be defined by the music industry or by being number one on the Billboard charts.

I've tried to live my life in a way that respects the beliefs of my mother and father. Everyone has blessings, gifts, passion, and drive.

Moses Montefiore loved Jerusalem, lived for Jerusalem, and even made it our family motto. A Zionist before the word was invented, he believed in the sacred idea of Jewish return as a religious Jew's duty, and in Jewish statehood.

My father Apresh Lahiri and mother Bansari Lahiri were great composers of their time.

Growing up in Canada, none of my family were performers or anything like that, but I was terrible at hockey, so they needed something for me to do on Saturdays for me to get out of the house. I signed up for theater school on Saturdays, and I'd go for four-and-a-half hours every Saturday morning and learn about theater.