I was going through a break up. I was depressed... I really did need to do something. Recording an album was a great escape. I don't know what would have happened if I wouldn't have started to work.

What you learn from working with other performers and musicians is invaluable, really, and can only help you grow. I mean, if you spend your whole life focusing on yourself, you're not really learning much.

The Gorillaz cartoons seem more real to me than the actual people on TV. Because at least you know that there's some intelligence behind the cartoons, and there's a lot of work that's gone into it, so it can't all be just a lie

Music is something that should speak for itself, straight from the heart. It took me a long time to understand that.

The best way to get to know Africa is to go there and see what it is. To know somewhere that crazy and that magnificent, you have to spend some time among people, the rhythm of their lives.

I'm slightly ambivalent to the whole relationship between the whole advertising world and music. I think sometimes it works and sometimes it's a really bad mismatch. I think on this occasion its fine because the iPod is like your own mini-library and that can't be a bad thing. It promotes eclecticism and that's very much what we are about so it's a good relationship.

More and more, cultural groups are cross-pollinating, and we're getting much more interesting art as a result.