After I finished writing the album I brought the music to my band. Sinkane is an American band comprised of people from all over the world: I am Sudanese, guitarist Jonny Lam is Chinese, keyboardist Elenna Canlas is Filipina, drummer Chris St. Hilaire is Trinidadian, and bassist Michael “Ish” Montgomery is Black American. Our collective experience as children of the diaspora helped bring the music to life in the most honest way possible.

So here we are. Dépaysé is the story of an immigrant’s journey of self-discovery in the Trump era. The music is loud and raw, and it’s bursting with energy unlike anything I’ve ever done before. It starts with a call to arms: “Everybody,” a rock & roll song in the spirit of Sly Stone and funky early-’70s Afro-rock bands like the Funkees and the Hygrades. Every day we wake up to another horror story about racism, and it’s left many of us angry, confused and frustrated. But we can change the news for the better. We can show people that a multicolored world is a beautiful one. Celebrating our differences yields beauty in life. And that takes… everybody. – Ahmed Gallab