You are in tour right now. You've done your Europe tour. Now you're North America. We're here in Toronto. Can you tell me more about your love for that city, specifically?

Toronto? I have a really beautiful relationship with Toronto. I used to date someone in Toronto. It's quite for for quite a while. It was like years. So I definitely have a personal connection with Toronto. I've spent a lot of years here on and off. And the people, the culture, the music, the food, just the city itself. I have a lot I love for it, and I'm very grateful to be back here. It's been a minute. It's been a couple of years since I've been here.

Definitely. We are now in a tattoo shop, and your friend, Leigh, is doing your tattoo. Yes. Can you tellus more about your friendship and what you're doing today?

Well, I'm currently in Toronto at a tattoo shop. One of my closest friends, Leith Hakeem, is doing a tattoo on me as we speak. Leith, when we meet? Fifteen years ago? Yeah, something like that. We met 15 years ago. Then sometimes you just know, you're stupid. We're going to be friends. You get scared easily. Oh, yeah. He's definitely one of the people that I talk to on a regular when we try. Even when we don't talk for a while, it doesn't fade the relationship, the friendship. It's definitely dope. He's an incredible artist, a huge inspiration to me as well, just as a friend, as a creative. He It's been tattooing now, so I had to get a tattoo.

What's the first tattoo he done to you?

This is the first one. 

With your last album, a kid from Yerevan. How is it to represent your Romanian heritage around the world?

I think my Romanian culture and heritage is really important to me. I didn't get into it up until I was getting a little older because younger, I was in Obviously, it's there from home and family. But connecting to my roots now has been more important to me. The older I get, the more I connect, which I think it's almost like this cliché development. As you're getting older, you connect more with where you're from. It's always been part of me, but I think I'm trying to go out of my way more now to also bring it into my art, and not just the music, but just the visuals and just who I am because I breathe it every day. It's part of me when I talk to my parents, when I cook or eat certain foods. And living in LA now, I'm closer to my culture, too, because there's a big Romanian community in LA. So that has been pretty great and very important to me. And I'm still learning, to be very honest, because I left Armenia at the very young age. I was 12 when I left.

So then you grew up in Netherlands?

So yeah, when I left I lived in Russia for a while, and then I went to the Netherlands. At the age of 13, I moved to Amsterdam. Then I spent 20 plus years in Amsterdam, and then now I'm in LA. Now I live in LA.

Is there any established system, support system from the Romanian community in music or something you've been beneficial from your heritage?

It's very interesting you ask that because I think a lot of our Arminians only now are discovering that I'm Romanian. Also, mainly because of the title of the album, A Kid from Yerevan, because Yerevan is the capital of Armenia, and that's where I'm from. I think that also had a huge part in it that most people don't even know that I'm Arminian. If people would ask, I would say it, but I wasn't shouting off the top of the roof like, Hey, I'm Arminian. There was no shame or anything. It was just I wasn't preoccupied with it. I was just doing my own thing. If people would ask me, Where are I would say, Well, I'm originally from Armenia, but I live in Amsterdam. I'm a Dutch citizen. Now that I communicated more, you can clearly see it more.