I would be reading about Mughal history while listening to Ravi Shankar with incense lit in my room. And I would be like, “I’m Indian — I don’t need to be doing all this!” But I’m not Indian — I’m American.

Specifically a New Yorker — so much so that you rap, “I still don’t bump Tupac.”

The album is all about New York. It was one of those artist-in-exile things, like the Beastie Boys in L. A. or E. B. White leaving New York to write about the city. When you leave New York, it’s all that you think about. In India, I wasn’t the Indian rapper — I was just the rapper. Ironically, it was there that I was able to look past being Indian, and that allowed me to make this record.

Did being overseas leave you disconnected from what was happening in rap music here?

My favorite rappers right now are Meek Mill and French Montana. They’re not inherently political guys, but so much of their music is about the justice system. In light of what happened in Ferguson, it’s important for people to talk about that stuff.

But I was listening to a lot of Indian music — Bollywood songs on Spice FM. I like that the album wasn’t influenced by contemporary stuff, especially because rap is regionally moving so much to Atlanta.