Omar Offendum is back here in New York, and he's going to perform a couple of tracks from the show, beginning with this one called Peddling Dervish.

Daddy was a mountain man, so naturally he was elevated But poor me, I'm just an urban son, alas To the streets I have been relegated Peddling till I level up To the ecstatic heights of a nebula Dervish of the dollar serving the almighty treasurer The measurer of scales, alchemist of sales Circling around these city blocks with a box full of pretty socks And silver spoons, spinning tales To upper-class women, make them swoon Cop coming, got to duck and pass from him Or I'm doomed, this is my life Street peddler highlights And as a result, better than most is my eyesight Learning the most from mistakes in hindsight Making a promise that my progenies is better than my life Better than my life So much better than my life So that one day they can wake up and say Uh, yeah I live a high life, that cardamom sha life Early in the morning just trying to provide Life for the family, whatever it'll take Silk bag by the waist, peddle trinkets by the case When musade is to be made, boy Nothing is too far for a chamay Lots of directions all over the States Wasta connections so I don't gotta pay Full price for the jammy As long as I am able to put rice and lamb shanks on the table Give thanks, putting cousins on my payroll till banks know my name Omar Speaking into existence what my ancestors dreamed of glimpsing Near extinction, scenes of crimson all they knew Now descendants teem with riches Posing for pictures, all aglow A fortunate few will learn to touch the sky High, hands up, catching blessings like the dervish do Whirl, whirl, whirl till the world is the size of a pearl Yeah, whirl, whirl, whirl Dance, dance, dance till the world's like the point of a needle Dance, dance, dance Soar, soar, soar till the world is no more Soar, soar, soar Know the meaning Get high, high, high I said high, high, high Know the meaning Hey, Omar, are you higher than your neighbors? Higher than them all Are we higher than the haters? Higher than them all Are we higher than the Raiders? Higher than-

than-Than the last Crusaders.

Higher than them all.

That's right.

Spiritually speaking, I'm peaking.

I work for myself, no meetings to be in.

Not Quite White, performance from my guest, Omar Offendum.

And I wanted to kind of reflect the version that I was seeing at home and with my mom that I wasn't seeing in the mainstream media

about immigration.

I can definitely relate to a lot of what you were just saying.

Also about my mother coming alive back in Damascus and other places in ways that she refused to allow herself to be here.

My father had passed when I was quite young and it was one year after we had finally become citizens and I know how much that meant to him.

He had a very different relationship to Syria.

He was from Hama, a city that experienced a really traumatic and violent sort of chapter one month after I was born.

Are we living in a technological utopia? Are we living in the dystopia we all fear? I mean, what do you see as artists as the sort of pros and cons of the different ways of distribution and also the ways in which people receive art nowadays?