Sometimes I'm in a bad mood, sometimes I'm in a good mood. It's like everyone else.Collection: Good
Sometimes I could do with a shoulder to cry on, someone to come home and talk to.Collection: Home
I've never been shown how to get rid of my anger. I think I do it through my music.Collection: Anger
I've had a bit of a crazy life. So writing lyrics in songs is easy for me.
First off, I absolutely hate the term 'trip-hop.' It was a term that made it seemed like I was trying to turn the music into something else. I was always influenced by New York hip-hop, since forever, since I was a kid.
Bjork was so good to me. She's very independent and she doesn't suck your energy. She lets you be you. She's a free spirit so she knows how to be with a free spirit. That's the only sort of woman I could see myself staying with.
Surviving in music is the same as surviving in a place like Knowle West - sometimes you need to be low-key, but sometimes you need to make your presence felt.
Sometimes I walk down the street and hear people whisper 'that's Tricky' and I look back, and I see them looking back, then that affects everything I do - the way I walk the way I talk. It stops you being real.
The Internet is like walking into a room in your house you never knew was there and, like, it's full of thousands of people who have been listening to everything you've been doing and saying the whole time! Scary.
I've learned to enjoy a very simple lifestyle.
I can't afford to take advice.
When I'm not on tour, my band have to do pantomime. I want to do big gigs to earn them money.
Yes, well, on stage I'm a different person, very aggressive, very tense. That's not me because I'm humble and polite, unless someone is rude to me.
If I wasn't doing music, I might have been a builder.
I'm like anyone else, if I'm not having a good time you'll hear it.
I've got one younger brother who can do prison like his breakfast, but I'm not built for it.
I cry at absolutely anything. 'Lethal Weapon,' the fight scene at the end - you can see it on YouTube.
I don't believe in death. I just don't think all that love and all that energy can just disappear into nothing.
I don't like creepy-crawly stuff. Girls can pick up a spider and just chuck it out of the window. No way, I'm not doing that. I actually scream.
What I consider normal ain't really normal.
I've a kinship with women. That's why I've always put women in strong positions in music.
This ain't bad-guy talk, cos I'm not a bad guy. But people don't realise what fear can do. I've had situations where I've been so scared, where I can't sleep, I can't eat, and it's gone on for weeks and it's ruining my life. It makes you sick, it makes you mentally ill.
Fear can be very dangerous. You should never make someone too scared of you.
Because I didn't come from money I didn't know to manage it.
Being naive I think is how you construct new music. When you start thinking too much what is it you're doing? You're just making an album. You're not doing brain surgery. If you take it too seriously you start taking yourself too seriously.
I can remember arguing for two days with Mark Saunders about 'Strugglin'.' He said: 'This can't work. It's not musically correct.' And I said: 'If I can hear it in my brain you can't tell me it can't work.'
For a child, it's not so much scary, it's surreal; there was a lot of fighting in my great-grandmother's house; you'd go there and then someone would meet up and there'd be a fight; I've seen my uncles fight in the street, I've seen my grandmother fight in the street, it becomes normal.
I always thought you went out and entertained people and got nothing back in return. But in the last year, I've realised that what the crowd gives you is so amazing, that sometimes I just stand onstage and cry.
My music life is great. It's in the real world, that's where I have the problem, sometimes relating to people. I can be angry, you know, still really dark in my mind.
I used to see a psychiatrist in New York but I got bored.
I'm not just a kid from Knowle West trying to build a future, I have some experience, I can experiment... and honestly, musically, I can't be touched.
I'd love to be part Apache Indian. But I'm from Bristol. No Apaches there mate.
The Internet is incredible!
I've met a couple of total wrecks who've loved Bjork and ended up broken hearted. I didn't love her.
I can be anything I want when I do an album. I can be vulnerable, I can be weak, I can be nasty, I can be strong, I can be good, I can be bad. They're all in there - but in society you don't get to use all these personalities because you're trained.
I spend 70% of my time laughing. I don't walk around all dark. I might take my photos like that because I'm not a clown. But I'm a really soft, feminine, gentle, normal guy.
When I lived in Knowle West, I must have been the same person I am now. It wasn't like someone came and sprinkled superstar dust on me. So that means all the kids who come from that kind of background can do what I'm doing. They're superstars just waiting to happen.
I can experiment, I can be honest, and honestly, musically, I can't be touched.
This album, 'ununiform,' I didn't even have to record it if I didn't want to.
When my mother died, we had the coffin at home. Like, old-school - you have the coffin at home so all the people can come and see the person. And her coffin was next to my room, so I used to go in and stand on a chair and look at her. You know, it's open coffin and stuff.
My head works a little faster than people around me sometimes and it can be quite painful. It was a problem for me in school because I couldn't sit down long enough. I couldn't concentrate. So I didn't go to classes very much.
I have no time for perfection.
I'll play about with different sounds in the studio with no concept of music at all. I'll just build up a song in layers and when it sounds all right and gives me a vibe, that's enough, and I'll add vocals and move on.
I get bored very quickly.
I lived in New Jersey in a massive house, not a 50 Cent mansion, but four bedrooms, and I had acres of land.
A lot of young people have not a clue what being famous entails. When you lose your anonymity you can't walk down the street without people looking at you.
I wouldn't work with Damon Albarn again.
As a musician to hang out with a politician, I think it's disgusting.
She ain't my queen. My grandmother is my queen, and my auntie, my cousin, my daughters... the Queen's never done anything for me.
The Queen wanted me to do the music for the 2000 celebrations at the Dome. I went down to these offices at Buckingham Palace and had a meeting with these people, and I was like, 'Alright how much?' And they said, 'Well no, it's for the Queen.' They thought because it's such a huge thing, I'd do it for free! So I turned that down.