Today is a really special day for our platform, to have this opportunity to share such a soulful interview with for me one of the biggest greats in music history, Sananda Maitreya, who in the 80’s was known as Terence Trent D’Arby. His is truly a wild, defiant and fascinating story as the fast-paced life and the interference of industry figures led him to abandon that 80’s rock star life, and disappear from the public eye as he battled with PTSD. Nevertheless the soul continues to manifest and transform and today we speak to him about his new album and inspirations.

Greatest inspirations or influences?

• The Beatles, Rolling Stones, Rod Stewart,

• Stevie Wonder, Bob Dylan, Frank Sinatra, Sam Cooke, The Beach Boys, 

• Jimi Hendrix, Marvin Gaye, Ella Fitzgerald, James Brown, Patsy Cline,

• Aretha Franklin, Hank Williams, Miles Davis, the Jackson 5, Prince,

• Duke Ellington. Also Bach, Mozart & Beethoven.

I’ve been fortunate to have been inspired by a great many wonderful artists and would like to think that somewhere within me, all of those artists exist.

What is the new album in your own words all about.  

‘Pandora’s PlayHouse’ is about RETURNING HOME TO OUR TRUTH and claiming your space within the HOUSE OF TRANSFORMATION that The PlayHouse represents. A place where all things become known and integrated within ourselves. So that we come to see more freedom in the moments that exists in the life around us.

This album represents “WE ARE WHO WE ARE.” Without shame, without too much explanation. Accepting that BY EMBRACING OURSELVES we embrace our peace and the keys to the gates of a better world.

How has this year changed you creatively and how do you see the world moving forward?

The past year has not changed me creatively at all, I live at the edge of creativity’s blade as a matter of survival and my emotional well being.  What this past year HAS done is to have provide A BETTER FOCUS on the things that needed to be taken care of and done. As even governments & corporations know, CRISIS IS ALWAYS A GOOD TIME FOR REINVENTION and for clearing out the dead weight while making more clear what matters. It certainly adds more ‘Immediacy’ to wherever your focus is most concentrated.

As for how I see the world changing, we must strive to remember that WE ARE THE WORLD, WE ARE THE CHILDREN. So as WE CHANGE, SO DOES THE WORLD. THE WORLD WILL NOT CHANGE ONCE WE ALL AGREE, the world will change once we realize that it doesn’t MATTER if we all agree, we still deserve to live in the communities we are willing to work for. Because no matter who we are, we all want essentially the same things. The CHANGE COMES FROM WITHIN US, each determined that they are willing to see past their judgment of another and instead see the CROSS THAT EVERY ONE OF US HAS BEEN ASKED TO CARRY. Whether on behalf of our family, our religion, our genders, our nations, our tribes.  WE ARE ALL FUCKED UP and the more HONEST we are about it, the more we can turn the situation to our advantage. Compassion is merely the willingness to understand that every man has earned his wounds and does what he can to live with them.

I really want to thank you for taking the time to share so much with us, this space is your platform, anything else you’d like to share with us?

Thank you Leila from MY HEART for the positive atmosphere you’ve provided for my work which is my passion. I am very grateful. In one of my songs on ‘Pandora’s PlayHouse’ (The Ballad Of Rod Steiger), the gist of the moral of the tale is ‘PLAY STUPID GAMES, WIN STUPID PRIZES’. The world is ours to mold into the shapes we wish to inhabit. Evolution is always on the side of good solutions & our only nemesis is  STUPIDITY & allowing it to dominate & corrupt us under the many forms it uses to hide itself. As long as we don’t surrender to STUPID SOLUTIONS, we should, by all rights, be fine.