You can't write a book if you've never read a book. And if you've read five books and you try to write a book, your book will mainly encompass the themes and the context of the five books you've read. Now, the more books you read, the more you can bring to a book when you decide to write one. So the more rap I learned, the more I was able to bring to rap when I decided to rap. But this was all subconscious.

Once I get in my mind that it's going to go "da da da dadada da da," then it's kind of like filling in the blanks.

It would be kind of ill to see Rachel McAdams win an Oscar [for Spotlight] - I don't think people give her credit for her range, she started in a kind of character with younger demographic-aged films and really made a push to be taken more seriously and got a lot of opportunities and knocked it out the park. But I feel like Jennifer Jason Leigh deserves one, maybe not just for Hateful Eight but for [Anomalisa] and everything. Like, I tried to watch Adaption again, that's rough!

Well, the first thing I do is I try to listen to whatever rapping is already on the track. I listen for cadence and melody to see how the track's already been written, and to make sure that whatever flow or flows I decide to run with, or patterns or melodies that I decide to put into the song, that they're not already in there. Then I try to see if there's a different part of the subject matter that I can talk about.

Jay was intimidating to the point where I was totally intimidated before I even got to the booth. But I was like, this is going to be a test of my mettle. In the South, I'm regarded as the guy who, quote unquote, out-rapped Jay-Z.

I'm going with Charlotte Rampling. In 45 Years [movie], you start out feeling so bad for her, and then it kind of shifts. I don't know how long you have to act to be able to say everything when you say nothing. The acting feels so real. It's not a fluke that a movie that probably no one's heard of, an actress performance comes out of it.

Lenny Abrahamson is really the only threat to [Alejandro González ] Iñárritu, simply because the entire act one of Room is amazing. I believe Brie Larson is absolutely deserving of her nomination [for Actress in a Leading Role]. I'm not sure if she's going to win, but I think this is a big moment for Brie Larson, I think her trajectory is going to go straight up.