Quotes of All Topics . Occasions . Authors
My mum and dad weren't together when I was born. When I was a teenager, dad brought this girl round: here's your sister. She was only two years old, and I never saw her again from that day.
Biggie has definitely stood the test of time. He's the reason Jay-Z and loads of other rappers are who they are. His flow and wordplay is brilliant - the stories he would tell are just nuts.
Drake can do that well, he can have the hottest tune every summer for the next 20 years, and that's how he does his things. But naaaaah, I might go away for three years, you know what I mean?
He will go down as a legend along with Elvis and the Beatles and Michael Jackson. Bob Marley is right up there. He was a leader for reggae music - he really made it appeal to a world audience.
Visible success is important. It's important to be able to look on the TV and see yourself, turn on the radio and hear yourself. To see people from where you're from actually becoming successful.
I would continue to try to make songs how I did at the start. Wherever that be, like in your bedroom or coming up with ideas on the bus, as you grow that's gonna change. Sometimes it can get forced.
I would go to college and people would know me from the rave they went to at the weekend. So I would get a bit of respect. But I would always go to class and do my work. My mother made sure of that.
I'm laid-back. Sometimes, I think being laid-back will be my downfall; I'm a little too good at sitting on the sofa and doing nothing. But what can I say? It's who I am, how I am, how I've always been.
I would love young girls to look up and see my string section or my brass section or the steel band and be like, 'Wow! I never thought I could do that, that's wicked! I want to be up there doing that.'
In most of my music it's firsthand experience, and some of the same rules apply in TV. The difference in music is the control, whereas doing this, it's someone else's words that you can play in your own way.
Personally, I enjoyed school as much as the next kid. I was into art and every sport going from football to table tennis, so I kept busy. I never bunked a day off and left with 9 GCSEs, if I remember correctly.
My favourite lessons in college were when we would have a professional teach us, or when we went out of the classroom for the day. You take in so much more when someone who's been there and done it is telling you.
There are too many kids who don't think they can make it to the top. They give up before they have even started, but in my eyes everyone can succeed and it's really important that young people believe in themselves.
I believe in education, but I think the balance has to be right between theory and practical experience. I think from secondary school onwards it should be more about preparing you for life and work in the real world.
As a boy, I was known for reciting whole songs after one listen. I've always had a good memory for lyrics. It's weird because I don't have a good memory for other things. I remember lyrics easier than the shopping list.
Reggae was always playing at home in East Ham when I was growing up. Loud music would be coming from the bedroom, and downstairs all you'd hear was the bass. My uncles had sound systems and we used to go to Jamaica a lot as a family.
Initially we were spitting lyrics over garage beats, in that eight-bar gap where there wasn't a vocal. But we were rebellious towards garage because they were rebellious towards us; a lot of their gatekeepers said grime was too violent.
It's really important to me to still spend time in the ends - I'm there all the time. I do my videos there, I still talk about it. It's important for me to be an inspiration to the youth of the area and not just leave now I've blown up.
I recorded my first song at 15. But I started rhyming a few years before that. At first it was trading lyrics at school. We'd get in a circle in the playground with a beat-boxer and spit rhymes. Then it would turn into a big gathering after school.
Me and Skepta, we're kind of from the same world but have totally different-sounding albums. That's why I get funny sometimes when people say I'm a grime artist. Not in a negative way, but I don't feel it's a true representation of the music I'm making.
Grime, in particular, is not really about pirate radio and local raves on top of pubs anymore. There are things I miss about those times but as an up-and-coming MC, back then, I would have loved to have had SoundCloud and YouTube and all these platforms to promote my music.
Both are about telling stories and bringing truth to those stories. In most of my music it's firsthand experience, and some of the same rules apply in TV. The difference in music is the control, whereas doing this, it's someone else's words that you can play in your own way.
That is part of the problem, that lack of belief in yourself because you don't see success around you. I guess that breeds defeatism, so yes there does need to be resources out there and support that will nurture talent that I believe is there, and passion that I know is there.
I can't say that I am not driven by success or have a fear of being successful. But for me, the ultimate thing is just about being good at what I do. Because if I made an album that I didn't really like and it was super successful then I wouldn't happy within. That's the kind of person I am.
I've got a friend who went to jail in 2004 just before my first album came out. I'm on TV, and they're inside, looking at me like I'm 50 Cent. They think I'm killing it, earning mad dough every day. I'm sending him trainers and that, but it's not enough, because he thinks I should be doing more.
At some of my earliest shows, we used to roll up 20 deep - if my mates can't come in, I can't come in. My record label couldn't understand it: plus-19 on the guestlist?! But that was how it was. Over the years - as it is with everyone, but amplified from being in the public - it's got smaller and smaller.
I have to go into the studio to make my second album knowing I'm making an album. When I first started making songs I didn't have an album in mind, that's why a lot of them I like - I'm talking about how I haven't got a deal, how I'm living, you can never really top the first time, but we'll see how it goes.
People used to say if you really want to crack it you have really got to go to America. But with the Internet and the scene how it is... Americans are coming here more and more. They are looking at what we are doing. I think it's important that we all remain here, that we stay here and keep this scene thriving.
The Wire' was from a police perspective - in terms of the streets and that, it was probably like, thirty per cent. 'Top Boy' is really from the perspective of the quote-unquote criminal. It's getting into the mind of these people and why they do what they do. It's bigger than just 'Woke up and wanted to be bad one day.'
Lyrics came quite easy early on in my career. But I always wanted to push it further and stand out a bit more. We were coming from the garage era when lyrics were simplified, purposefully, to work in the club environment. They were about hyping up a crowd or bigging up a DJ. Moving into grime, our lyrics became more in-depth.
I'm just used to having so much control in music and in acting you have to give that up a bit. Sure, our voices are heard on set, but at the end of the day you can lose an argument. Whereas in music, if I feel the second verse needs to be changed I can change it. I find it really hard as an artist to give up some of that control.
We grew up and I feel like we're achieving a level of success through music that's allowing us to see the world. I want that for people where I come from. I want them to achieve that same thing through their passions. It's important that when we reach these places, that we still are who we are, and we never forget where we come from.
As an MC, I come from a background where the onstage experience is freestyle-based: you never know who's going to join you on stage, or what you're gonna do, or how long you can stay on. You kind of lose that, once you get on to recording albums and going on tour. Doing Africa Express has brought me back to that excitement - for the unexpected.
