• Hi Karl, How are you?

I’m doing fantastic, just got in from Montreal kind of jet lagged but its my album. I’m promoting my first solo album.

• You had to leave Lebanon at the age of three and you grew up in Dubai. It is kind of a diverse community to the kind of music you perform today. How did that happen for you?

You know, I left Lebanon when I was three years old I don’t really remember too much obviously because of the civil war. So we went to Dubai we stayed there my dad got a job there so, we stayed there until I graduated out of Shwiefat in Sharjah in 1995. Then I went to Canada and over there I pursued my music. Now getting back to my music, I just love the culture and I wanted to explore a little bit of my Lebanese background, because the music that I make is R&B music. Especially in North America where it is originated it’s not very common to do something and show your roots, everyone’s always shy about that. So I said, you know what I want to do something that is really different and go with our culture. There is so much beauty in it, and everybody needs to hear that and not only in the Middle East but across the world. I want to spread positively in my own culture to the rest of the world in North America, the UK and wherever I can and try to help eliminate the thoughts about you’re an Arab or whatever. So, to me that was very important in making my album, it’s showing that I’m proud of what I am and you can do that too. If you’re an Arab and you’re a kid and you have a dream you can make it as well.

• We’re routing for you.

Yeah man thanks a lot.

• Does coming back to Dubai feel like coming back home?

Big time, I mean like it’s huge. All my friends from highschool are calling me, “hey man whatsup man what are you doing you’re a big star your opening up for Mary J Blige and you got J LO.” So its definitely amazing coming back and you got a big show in Dubai. It feels so good, I was raised here this is my first home you know what I mean? So, uh I’m speechless, it’s really cool. And all my friends are going to be there at the show, you know what I mean? They’re rooting for me. And we’re making so many fans our sales are going great. So I can’t complain man Knock on the wood (Knocks on wood)

• You were in studios producing, composing and writing songs. What was that like?

It was something that came kind of naturally, because my mom is a piano teacher and my dad is a musician. Both are musicians in the house, so we had pianos lying around guitars, drums. When I was growing up we had music, so I kind of learnt how to play a little bit of everything. When you’re a producer you have to know all the elements of making a song, which is the drums, the bass the guitar the piano. So it kind of have me training as you can say sort of an informal training in becoming a producer. When I got to Canada, I got asked to open up for a group called “Trenzen” which was a trip-hop group and be the lead singer. And the way they would pay me was by letting me use the studio from 10 at night until 5 in the morning. They just put me there, lock me in the studio, so I started learning on all the equipment in the studio, it took me a year just looking through all the gadgets what you could do with this what you could do with that, sort of experiment it. I came up with my single, got a video and from there everything just snow-balled people started calling me for projects. My first production ever, I was 20, my first professional production project, which I was hired to do, it went platinum in its first week, it sold 100,000 units in Canada. I won an award; it’s like a Grammy but for Canada “Best Mixing Sound of the Year.” So I was already on my way, it was like “maybe I’m good” so I am here 6 years later opening up for Mary J.

• At the young age of 21, you worked with Gabriel, two of the songs that you have co-written for her made it to the No. 1. Did you feel like you achieved the success you wanted to?

I think when anyone, you can ask any director or musician or artist, if they were satisfied then. I don’t want to think that if I was satisfied I would just quit and die, You know what I mean? The day you are satisfied with what you are you don’t just stop. It’s only human to always drive it to the next level, not to be selfish about it and not to be unappreciative. Like I am very honored to have this gift to be able to do this and at the same time I see another vision, I see myself going higher and bigger, bigger, bigger and that goal is what drives me more, and more and more and I see that I can achieve it. And I want to let all the people know, you can do whatever you want in this world as long as you really believe it and truly believe that you can make this happen as long as you visualize it and take the necessary steps to get there and don’t be lazy. Lazy gets you nowhere, and you got to learn that. Be driven, be motivated, and go out there. Energy equals success.

• Tell us about your work on Star Academy.

Star Academy is a T.V. show kind of like American Idol. They hired me to produce a couple of songs on the album. I wrote three songs on the first album and co-produced the whole album. It was great; sold 500,000 units it was crazy. It was the biggest selling album in Canada in the year of 2003. It was so significant, because it was the biggest selling album phenomenon in Canada.