I have eight siblings, and we formed a group called Mac 9. I was Mac 7.
— Labrinth
I want to be a little bit brave. I want to feel scared sometimes. That's what's going to change the music business, if we have that kind of attitude.
I remember my brother came home with a bass and played a blues solo on it. I just went insane for days afterwards learning that.
I never called myself an urban artist, but that's what I was classed as, and I almost tried to live up to the name instead of who I really was.
I'm from Hackney, and it's an area that is not so pretty, and we have a different way of expressing ourselves than somebody from uptown that has lots of money.
My mother brought up nine children, in Hackney, and none of us are criminals, none of us in jail. Her strength made me who I am today.
I have learned that while your putting your record together you can get so caught up in making what you want that you forget what you wanted in the first place.
The first tour an artist does is a strange one... because you can never tell how the audience is going to react.
I think, as an artist, I wear a lot of different hats, and people have to join all of the dots.
Those that know me know that I'm not 100% in love with commercial pop music. It's not my preferred genre - I don't do squeaky clean pop.
My ethos is musical freedom: to create whatever I want.
My fans are like, 'Lab does what he does,' which is really cool. If I came out with a Jack White rock tune tomorrow, people would be like, 'Yeah, cool man,' which is great.
I'm a hundred percent a rock n' roll guy.
Urban is not actually my world. It was me trying something out, basically. I come from a gospel background.
I don't see categories; I don't see styles - l see them all gelled together. And it was gospel that definitely helped me to do that.
I have to be honest: I think production is mad - exciting - because, of course, you're creating the record. When you're a singer, you're just singing. Creating the music, directing, and seeing where it's gonna go in production is very, very exciting.
I got into music through just being inspired by my brother and sisters. They all sing, play instruments and write - and they're very good at it.
Everyone in my family has been in music - my cousins, my grandmother, my grandfather - so it's quite a big family tree.
You can't go up to girls and start talking about minor 7ths and expect to pull. It's not going to work.
My brothers came home with country, jazz, everything... it was always very normal to me to make any type of music. It was possible to fuse all the sounds, so it never sounded confusing to me to mix jazz and dubstep.
I know this sounds weird, but I honestly believe music comes from the universe. Inspiration comes from the universe, and you drag it into your mind.
Branding your song is the worst thing you can ever do. That's turning your song into a product.
When I was younger, I'd be in the studio three days straight to get something right, and my manager would be like, 'Go home!' Even now, I still sleep in the studio sometimes, but I can't do it quite as often. I've got gigs; I can't have my hobo beard! But if you love what you're doing, you can't stop. It's obsessive.
I try as much I can after every live performance to read all the comments my fans post on Facebook and Twitter, as this helps enormously for me to understand straight from fans what worked and what didn't.
As a breed, I think artists are never 100% satisfied with their work, and we will always want that little bit of extra time to put the final gloss on it.
I really enjoy 'festival life,' as it were, and I love the reactions when I bring out my guitar on stage. The crowd are always a bit like, 'What the hell is this urban guy doing with a guitar,' and that's what I love - the shock element of it all!
I think producing a record for other artists is almost like giving them advice, and I would say that it is easier to produce another artist than it is to produce yourself.
I don't ever think it's a good idea to try to recreate the success you've had before; it's all about chasing something fresh and new.
I'm not just looking to be famous and attach myself to famous names. I want to make history in the business in terms of creativity.
When you make a record, I always imagine people dancing to it. If the chef thinks it tastes good, then there will be someone who ultimately believes the same thing.
I grew up not really having a father figure, and it didn't bother me, because he wasn't there in the first place. But then he started other families, and I was jealous. It was like he was happy without our family.
One thing I always really enjoyed about Quincy Jones' production technique was that there were so many layers to every song. Like, one week you'd hear a new trumpet-line, then the next week you'd hear - be hearing a new guitar-line.
When I listen to a Coldplay record, you're gonna hear an indie band, and you know that's what you're gonna get from Coldplay. With myself, I'm not sure it's the same.
My main thing is I just want to share as much hope and happiness as possible for music. If I can share as many moments and help people believe in themselves... if I can do that, then I'll feel like my job is done.
You can make what you want. People care about what the artist has to say, what the sound is, and how it affects them.
My grandad's a gospel singer, and his children were singers, too. But I don't believe in God in the same way... not religion; it breaks us up too much. The same with musical styles - it breaks people up. I believe they are all one thing - why not put them together?
You get so close to your own music that you can't see the beauty in it. I had to learn to let go. It's good to be less precious.
I actually tried to learn the dictionary at one point. It didn't work; I only got through the first few pages.
English urban artists were very used to making secondhand American music, and I thought that was boring.
I'm a musical geek. It's like there's this big, wild universe in my head, and I love to express it.
I've made so many changes to my records because of the way the audience has reacted at the various festivals I've played - I've taken tracks back into the studio, stripped them bare, and built them back up again to create something entirely different.
I'm a perfectionist, and to actually finish something is good for me.
Different cultures produce a different 'cool.' And your perception of 'cool' changes depending on where you are.
I'm all for trying anything once; otherwise, you end up like David Guetta - reproducing the same formula over and over.
I've got perfectionist issues, as I can't seem to let tracks out the studio - it drives my manager nuts.
It's a lot easier producing for people or being in the background, and they can take all the fire from the front. But in order to express the ideas that I have without any kind of contamination, I thought it would be a cool thing to be out front.
I don't want to be someone that, when people look back, they think, 'Yeah, cool, he made us jump around for a bit in 2010.'
I need to make money, but I don't want to be another guy selling his McDonald's to the pop market.
I definitely didn't wanna be a one-dimensional artist that you can just put into one box. Because, to me, we're all masters of certain energies, and we all create different colours.
Of course, success takes you where your character can't sustain you.
