There was this idea where I felt divided between being like a jazz drummer and then like these little songs, and they didn't connect in terms of my different pieces of myself.

It was a process of kind of integrating all of the different mes.

If you're looking in the past of what already exists, you might not fit in those boxes.

You might have to divide yourself into different boxes.

But if you're looking like to the future of like what could be, then it's like easier.

The inspiration lies more into finding the thing that doesnt exist already.

I really just tried to make the thing that I wanted to make, that I was scared to make.

I'm finding a slay.

I'm finding rhythm.

They're trying to take away all that I got.

But I can't let ‘em.

People rise up to help each other.

We have to.

We have to navigate this landscape just like everyone else.

Let's get into this last joint.

Trying to make my way back home, you feel me?

Shout out to Seattle.

One.

Two.

Three.

Four.

[Kassa Overall singing “Make My Way Back Home”] ♪ You can cry to your momma ♪ ♪ But she don't want no drama ♪ ♪ Uh uh, Uh uh, Uh ♪ ♪ I been watching all my karma ♪ ♪ Got me working like a farmer ♪ ♪ Trying to make my way back ♪ ♪ What's your life like?

♪ ♪ At a loss for words, I can't complain ♪ ♪ I sowed the seeds and prayed for rain ♪ ♪ I filled prescriptions to black out vision ♪ ♪ Still feel the tremble of a victim... ♪♪ I guess my whole life it was like man I wish I could make music that make somebody feel like that one day, right?

I played in the big band at Garfield.

We had a gig at the Mount Baker Community Center, and there was a song that was like, had a big shout chorus.

It's like drum fills while the band is playing these hits.

[Kassa scatting] And I was trying to figure out what to do for college.

Should I go to music school?

Should I have something to fall back on?

And I was like, dealing with, like, I don't know, depression.

Just like my whole life was just feeling, like, hectic.

And the shout chorus came.

I'm playing.

And all of a sudden I felt like I was out of my body on the ceiling, looking down and watching myself play the exact perfect note that a human being could play.

Do you know what I mean?

Like it felt like, Neo in The Matrix in that moment.

It just, whatever, all my questions in life seemed to be solved.

I moved to New York to to become a jazz drummer and to play drums with the greatest musicians I could.

I went to Oberlin Conservatory of Music.

I studied with Billy Hart at that time.

Billy Hart is a drummer who's I believe he's on like 7 or 800 records.

It wasn't so much a technical study as it was like apprenticeship to study with somebody who's doing something that you wanted to do.

So within a year of moving to New York, I'm playing at places like the Paris Jazz Festival and all over the world, filled up a passport.

I spent some time DJing on The Colbert Show with Jon Batiste.

That was kind of towards the end of my, like, sideman career.

And there was a point where I stopped enjoying the gig, and I felt like the crowd wasn't being moved.

And part of that was because I wasn't being moved, and I packed up and came back to Seattle for a few months.

You know, I went through a breakup somewhere around that time, which also kind of makes you reconsider everything.

I was thinking about quitting and, instead of quitting, what I eventually did is I, I rebuilt my, my playing from the ground up.

So, like, I relearned how to hit the drum like a baby.

Everything was just... just like when you when you hear a toddler hit the drums for the first time.

It's like they're like...

So I started learning how to play like that, if that makes sense.

And holding thoughts in my brain.

“I am love, I am peace I am joy I am divine will.” And once I got that going, then I started adding technique back in.

But coming from that place of relaxation.

Kassas initiative mixing and production in a way that really had not been done before.

Certainly, you know, people have been sampling jazz for hip hop, but Kassas kind of blending of the two was so organic and just worked so well.

And he's also been on the vanguard of presence in the music as, radically vulnerable.

And this is joining artists like Samora Pinderhughes or Melanie Charles who are really bringing fully into their musical expression, the pain of being human, the struggles with mental health issues, the terror sometimes of being an artist in this world.

I'm trying to stay inspired because as an artist, it's not guaranteed you're always going to be inspired.

And so one of the best ways to stay inspired is to recreate your process.

Around 2017, I really started trying to find my own sound, to put out my own records.

It took a certain amount of courage to be like, no, this is really the thing.

And I noticed my friends that, you know, would come and support me was like, “Yo, this is what I've been waiting for you to do.

You know what I mean?

Like, kind of like I stumbled on like, oh, this kind of works.

Like, I really just tried to make the thing that I wanted to make that I was scared to make.

And I saw the universe react positively.

For me, jazz is like the it's like the mysticism of the Black American community.

You know, like when it's time to get connected with the higher self.

For me, that's what this music has always been about the seeking, seeking the self through sound.