I was never a 'sit down with a notepad and write lyrics' kind of person.

Hip-hop has been the guiding light of my life as a musician and a music fan. It's the one common thread through all of it from the time I bought my first record probably. It's always been there.

I didn't start playing music really until I was 18/19, so it was a relatively new thing. I didn't play much music in school.

I'm not an L.A. guy. I don't take meetings - you know what I mean? I don't really know how to interact very well with people in L.A. because everybody's got an agenda and everybody's like, "What do you do?" "Where are you going?" Or it's like, "What do you know?" And I'm not on a grind - I was there to make music and to meet people but I wasn't hustling for anything.

I really wanted to approach performing live differently than most people who just play guitar and sing.

I moved to London with this really warped sense of expectation.

I'm mostly a keep-to-myself kind of guy, but you slowly find yourself getting folded into the musical tapestry.