Hey there, I'm Amadaluy Akbar, and this is See Something Say Something, the BuzzFeed podcast where we drink Jai tell stories and talk about being Muslim in America.

This week, I brought Indian American rapper Heems into this studio to talk music, you know, being stopped at the airport and being a non-Muslim writing raps from a Muslim perspective

and how he got there.

And we're also going to do a new segment called What Does Abu Think?

Where I pester him about his favorite music,

because he really doesn't like it very much.

If you see something... he really doesn't like it very much. Hems, whose real name is Hemanshu, is a rapper and activist who was most famously involved in the movement around keeping Punjabi deli and grocery open in the face of city construction around the area.

An artist? Would you call yourself an artist?

Oh, hell yeah.

Yeah?

Yeah.

Sometimes I want to call myself an artist, but, you know, I just write.

That's all I do.

Yeah, you should make more art.

I gotta make more art.

That's the first step.

So you may know him from The Sweatshop Boys, which is his

collaboration with actor and rapper Riz MC or Riz Ahmed. And also... Who's an actual Muslim? Who's an actual Muslim? And also the now defunct Das Races, which was with Kool-A-D. Welcome to the show, Hems. And Dapwell. And Dapwell. And Swet Shop Boys is with Redigno as well. Redigno. Those are,

Redigno is your producer?

Yeah.

Cool.

Yeah, thanks for having me.

...