I need to make the album that deserves attention. Everyone's busy. I need to really be saying something.
— Kano
Jermaine Defoe was from my area. Rio Ferdinand used to come into my barbershop.
I love the building and the history. I understand not many people like me have played there. But the aim is not to conform to that building. It's to bring the Albert Hall into my world.
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.
I like table-tennis and I'm good at it.
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.
I'm just trying to humanise situations and represent voices that aren't being represented.
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.
I don't get nervous.
I hate PCs, and I hate using the mouse.
I think Mighty Moe really got me into a whole different style of MCing. There were a lot of people with simple lyrics and simple word play- he really pushed out the boat.
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.
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.
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.
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.
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.
Starting out, when I was on pirate radio, or even around 2005 when I was supporting Mike Skinner at Brixton Academy, I never really saw myself being able to play my own show there.
I do feel that it's very important to see positive imagery.
Sometimes I feel like distance helps observation.
You fight for your character in the script. It's part of our job to evolve them, show all sides of them.
Probably as young as 10 I would take songs and just change the lyrics.
I'm a big fan of D Double E who always used MCing styles that other people weren't.
I don't want to be a preachy person.
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.
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.'
I'm definitely not a nerd... but maybe I'm a bit of a nerd when it comes to music and lyrics and things like that. Other than that, I'm definitley not a nerd. I wish I was, though.
Garage has been the big influence in my life. It was the first music that I started MCing to and I really used to look up to Heartless Crew.
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.
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'm always working out how people perceive me, and that's a hard thing to navigate sometimes.
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.
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.
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.
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.
I know how important imagery is.
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.
I would love to be involved in a table-tennis game.
The first song I did was when I was 15 it was called 'Party Mode.'
I think great art poses questions and doesn't necessarily give answers and solutions - that's not what I'm trying to do.
Hip-hop is the art of story-telling.
Grime don't mean nothing, we never called it grime. It's just a word someone associated with us. I wouldn't say all my music's grimy.
Everybody has flaws, and every country has flaws. But you can still love something even though you know it's been so wrong before, and sometimes is now, and probably will be again.
I don't agree with any form of butler, so definitely not a robot one. It's lazy, so a bad idea.
I like Jay-Z for his lyrics, his flow; he's always forward thinking.
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.
You may think it's weird working with a cartoon band but there are a lot of characters in grime, especially since the early days.
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.
People think I can't go shopping - that's their perception of how famous I am.
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.
