I feel like when I'm writing for other people, when I'm doing rap hooks, it's kinda like playing dress up for me...

There is a thread connecting you no matter how far away you are from someone and you know I have two or three relationships in my life that are like that.

I'd want to read the stories that I'd written, I'd want to show the drawings that I made. That was just purely natural. So I knew I wanted to go into the arts in some way and that I'd want to show that work in some way.

I think you have to be very careful getting the balance right if you're going to talk about grand themes like war, death and nationhood. You need to use the right language or don't do it at all.

I think of myself as a songwriter, a weaver of story and imagination in a way that a novelist might write a book.

Any of these contemporary war situations, whether civilian or soldier on either side - that's what I was interested in. The people who are being affected. Not so much the political speak at the top of the food chain, but the people who are affected by it on the ground.

I come from an art-school background, and I still feel that in my music, it's about exploration and challenging myself, about putting myself in a place that's frightening because I haven't been there before.