Do you now consider yourself a songwriter?

At this point, I don’t particularly feel like a songwriter. But songs like, “Shining Path” or “Crumbs off the Table” for that mater - I’m writing the music, I’m writing the lyrics and doing everything else too. “Shining Path,” by the way was the name of a Peruvian revolutionary group – a very violent group in Peru.

I don’t know when you moved out of Ohio, but where did you wind up recording Third Hand?

I made that record in Philly. I grew up in Columbus. I moved there when I was four. When I was 18 or 19, I moved out to the Bay Area for a while and moved backed to Columbus. In 2002 I moved to Philadelphia.

In talking about Columbus, you have an emcee on The Colossus named Illogic. Had you worked with him previously? And since he’s been around for a while, are you surprised that he’s not better known?

Me and Illogic recorded with this guy named Rashaad back in Columbus who had a group called Third Eye. This is along time ago – it was before MHz – maybe ’95. It may have been even earlier. But we were both friends with this guy Rashaad and we recorded this one song fifteen years ago. Other than that, this was the first time that we’ve recorded music together.

We’re both about the same age and from the same era. As far as being surprised that he’s not more popular – at the heart of that, talent isn’t the biggest factor in success. It’s work ethic and drive. My success level is not on par with my talent. I’m a lot more successful than I am talented. That’s because I work very hard. And that’s not to say that Illogic doesn’t work hard, but he has three kids now. His life just ended up different than mine.

You already mentioned the new record being an examination of the past. There’re two distinct sides to your music, so is one going to be played out into the future?

I really don’t know. It’s tough to call. I think this is the last time that I’m going to a hodge-podge kind of thing. What I’d like to do moving forward is to hone in on a particular style. There are all types of things that I want to do with music. I see each record in the future being more theme oriented in the same way that Third Hand was.

I don’t have a lot of regrets about the things that I’ve done. There’s a part of me that looks back at my career and if I were to do something differently, Third Hand could have been four albums. One would basically being like “Shining Path” – just a whole record of guest appearances. A full r&b homage and maybe something like electro and sample based. I’m not the hugest Brian Eno fan, but that’s the kind of broad discography that I want to have.