What people don't know about oppression is that the oppressor works much harder. You always grew up being told you were not smart enough or not fast enough, but we all lived from the time we were children to beat the system.

I grew up with protests, marches, demonstrations, struggle. But I come from a clan of community workers.

I just came from South Africa, a place that had been in a perpetual uprising since 1653, so the uprising had become a way of life in our culture and we grew up with rallies and strikes and marches and boycotts.

South Africa at the time was becoming more and more unlivable both socially and politically. We had always dreamt of going overseas. We always wanted to meet American and European musicians and interact with them. We thought that we might have a chance to meet the same standards of playing as those musicians did if we had the same opportunities.

To tell you the truth, man, we spend most of the time travelling in hotels, in festivals, in concert halls, clubs, airports. The most unenjoyable part is all the security at airports.

When I left South Africa there were 10 million people - when I came back there were more than 40 million. I had to learn how to get to the highways because when I left where there were no highways.