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So many schools have cut the music classes out of their curriculum. We're trying to fill that gap by teaching the teachers how to educate the kids about their musical heritage.

More than 50 percent of kids who play an instrument go on to college, yet music education programs at the inner city public schools who need them most continue to be hit hard with budget cuts.

I have visited schools that have music programs and those that don't. I see the way the kids act with each other.

I think music should be the basis of an education, not just something you do once a week.

I'm a huge fan of music in schools and music education because that's how I grew up.

Music is not a very stable business. It comes and it goes, and so does money, but your education stays with you for the rest of your life. When you have that education, and you have nothing to fall back on, you can get a get a job anywhere.

Music is such an incredible tool for kids in general. They learn discipline; they learn how to express themselves. You learn math. You learn language. It's the ideal teaching tool, and that's why it's mind-boggling when any school superintendent decides that music is something we can kind of do without.

I lived in the States from 1996 till 2000. I attended the Berklee College of Music in Boston in 1997. But I wasn't the most hard-working student. I rarely went to school. At that time, I seriously doubted that you could learn creativity in school. Music isn't something you can just learn from other people. Sometimes I regret missing classes.

I don't know whether schooling would have helped me get farther along in music at this time. I doubt it would have.

But music raises a lot of issues. Music is something that matters to people a lot, and they put a lot of passion into it. And I think when you have an area like that, you're gonna find a lot of issues coming up.