I did drama at school, as a kid, but I ain't been to, like, acting school or anything. I was in a couple of school plays.
Adele texts me all the time and keeps me in check.
I'm not gonna ever announce that I'm going to do an album again. Waking up with that on your head almost doesn't allow you to make the best album you can.
The thing about awards is that a lot of those moments are about the whole world telling you that you deserve it and rah, rah, rah. I'm very appreciative of that, but I love experiencing stuff by myself. Because it feels different. You know the truth, and you can hear what the voice in your head is saying properly.
Even with the 'Top Boy' series with Ashley Walters... I've been talking like on the creative direction wave with Drake about the series. Making greatness with it. The whole style of what's going on in London, the sound, is real. It's an actual thing that actually happened. So it deserves to be on the telly.
I'm winning even if I have zero pence in my bank account, because my mind's free.
I used to think my accent was blocking me, and I hated it. Then I went to America, and every time someone said, 'What? Can you say that again?' I started liking it.
Songs like 'One Love' by Bob Marley - they stand the test of time - it doesn't matter - so anytime I write music, I try to write in tune with an emotion, and I hope there are more times like that for everyone.
When I was a youth, to be called 'African' was a diss. At school, the African kids used to lie and say they were Jamaican. So when I first came in the game, and I'm saying lyrics like, 'I make Nigerians proud of their tribal scars/ My bars make you push up your chest like bras,' that was a big deal for me.
I go to award ceremonies, but I always like to be in my world. That's the only place I can control where I won't get upset.
A lot of us who've made grime might be in the chart, but that is because of the country we are in.
In school, I wasn't like the cool guy who had all the new clothes and had all the girls. I felt like the world saw me as an idiot.
I hear all the big department stores like Macy's and Bloomingdale's in the U.S. playing hard hip-hop records to the shoppers, like Rick Ross at his gnarliest. That's amazing. It makes me think grime can do a similar thing.
All the other rappers around me aren't saying anything worthwhile. They're lost in rap: all they do is tell you they're a sick MC and they're better than you. I don't want to look like all these other little punk, dress-up, fake, manufactured artists. I'm not a rapper. I'm an activist.
I was like, 'I can't do grime. That's for kids.' - I was 20 at the time, and I thought I was a gangsta, a proper rude boy.
I've been into clothes since I was a kid, going to garage raves and seeing all the Tottenham gangsters wearing Moschino and Versace; I just always had a passion for it.
Every year, I always go abroad with dark music, and I'm going to these places, and I feel like I want a party rep - I want something that everyone is going to go crazy to and enjoy and have a good feeling.
It took a long time for hip-hop to become commercial. Now there's all these big black icons that came from nowhere to somewhere. Look at Jay-Z! People stopped being threatened by the music and just started to appreciate that it's good.
I think 'Inception' was a sick idea, but they didn't do it correctly.
I put three productions of my youngest brother Jason on my album, on 'Konnichiwa,' and that made me happy, to be able to do that for him.
