 Dear all, I want to thank you for this honorary degree. I am so honored to be part of those that you have honored in SOAS. Throughout my career, I try with my music, my activism, to build bridges between people, between culture, between language, because I deeply believe that our humanity is common. That if something happens somewhere in the world, sooner or later it will happen to me. For the students to be fortunate and honored to be in this school, they have to realize they are in a place where they can learn a global, a wider, a more wiser view of the world through cultures, through languages, and through the history of language in people that they are offered at SOAS. That's where we build and we create and we educate the next generation of leaders that can understand the complexity of the world we live in and the challenge that lay before us and how to tackle them by knowing and understanding the culture of everyone that they have to face. As diplomats, as leaders, as scientists, as artists, anything you decide to do in your life, this university will give you a leg forward. It gives you a vision of the world better than any other place in the world. Thank you so much for honoring me and I want to tell the students, be proud of where you are and what you are learning there and get out of there and become better politicians, better businessmen, better human beings for our world to be a better place for all of us, our children in the next generation coming. Thank you so much. I grew up in a household where our parents bring to us culture from all around the world. So when I left my country in 1983 fleeing the dictatorship of my country, I decided that what I've learned from my parents, that openness, that way of thinking that not one human being has to be seen through the lengths of its color has to be part of my work. So when I left my country, threw out my music, what did I do? I met people, different people from all around, different culture, different genre of music. I work with Philip Klass, I work with Yoyoma, I work with so many different genres of music that it brings me to understand and to really prove to the world that it's so small yet big and the challenge is never great, greater than our us. We have to be humble in the experience of meeting other people, listening, learning from one another. That is my experience as a musician and I will not stop doing that, meeting music from different parts of the world, meeting different cultures. Every time I travel and go to a country, the first thing I do when I get to my hotel room and I drop my suitcase is to walk in the street, to breathe the air the people are breathing, to eat the food of the people and to try to say few words in the language of the people in the country where I am. That brings me a sense of understanding that the basic needs that I have as a human being, that basic needs is everywhere the same. Through music, I've understood that the language that we speak is just part of us, it's not all what we are. And music and arts in general bring us to understand that behind our doors, behind our daily life, there's a greater thing that we have to achieve. Congratulations once again to all the students and I hope that I've come and visit you and then we can have a chat and have a discussion about your vision of the world and how we can all together in our different skills prepare and have a better world for all of us. Thank you so much and see you soon.