"I made a lot of peace with who I am and how I also am expanding in the various roles that I can take on and feel comfortable in."
"I do tend to be more private in my grief than other people. So perhaps through the music I can connect in ways that I cannot connect as a person."
"One of my favorite parts about that opening is that it's the beginning of a creative idea in which he starts and stops and then crosses something out right away."
"So I hope this piece doesn't give permission, but acceptance, to people. Hopefully see themselves and feel seen."
"There's always an idea of streaming against the mainstream. From there you find your own identity, you find your own truth, your find your own individuality. That's always something that consciously or unconsciously was something that was always a part of my makeup. "
"You have to match it a lot with great precision in some places because in this film, quite a few times, the video will cut to Mozart's hands at a piano."
"I feel that new music is actually more linked to us than maybe a Mozart symphony. Music, art in general, somehow evolves with us in the way we experience the world."
"I think there's something really valuable about building this space for Black musicians and also to inspire the next generation of of creatives to say, you can do something different, too."
"I am really interested in living in a way that helps other people be better. But I have to help myself be better. Composing is just the whole apparatus for that."
"I've experienced love. I've experienced loss. And I do have a subtext for every piece. But I always ask myself who is J'Nai in this?"