Qualia

For All the People You Know Qualia

Someone once said that a story is only worth telling if there is someone to listen to it. Hopefully you will bear with me while I tell my story. My name is Aakif Siddiq and I was born in Tripoli, Libya in December of 1977. My family came to America in 1985 in search of a future that I am not sure I have found. I am a young man with desires greater than most. I am a man torn between two worlds so different that I fear I might not succeed in either. In the midst of all the things that a person can possibly be made of, I have always found solace in one thing: music. Music embraced me when no one else did. It never asked for anything in return except devotion. A devotion that I was always willing to give. Music has carried me thru life in a way nothing else has. It has come to define me more than my name or even the color of my skin. I have been able to speak thru music and see a world I would never have seen otherwise. In an effort to define myself, I found a home in a term that speaks to the part of all of us that is undefinable, our Qualia. Our essence, our conscience. I have chosen to record under this title for numerous reasons, not the least of which is the undefinable character of music. I invite you to join me on a journey thru my heart of darkness and to the light at the end of the tunnel. I invite you to fall in love with me, with music and with life. As dark as my music might sound at first, it always has a sense of salvation and hope. A sense of forgiveness and acceptance. Most importantly, it has a sense of love, passion and an unending desire for something more. Someone once said that a story is only worth telling if there is someone to listen to it. I suppose the same is true for all things. But music is somehow different, it does what we all want to do: it rises up and in the end is far greater than the sum of it's parts. It needs nothing to exist and does so with and without us. Much like life.