- I've been listening to a lot of Queen this year - the Greatest Hits Volumes 1 & 2. I'm completely knocked out by the effort that's gone into making those records. The vocal harmonies, the guitar layering: the fact that this music was made before Pro Tools, it's breathtaking ... and humbling.
- [on "A Change Is Gonna Come" by Sam Cooke] It is the most perfect song. If Bloc Party could record something with that sort of emotional impact I would truly feel we had achieved all we could.
- [in 2007] Cocaine can be very attractive, very seductive. But, for me, it's bad news because that drug can really damage your voice. The drug I do enjoy taking is ecstasy, which gives a real sense of euphoria. It makes your senses so much more acute. It makes music sound so powerful. And it makes touch incredibly sensual. You know, every touch is orgasmic. These days, I don't even bother with pills that often.
- I think Oasis are the most overrated and pernicious band of all time. They have had a totally negative and dangerous impact upon the state of British music. They have made stupidity hip. They claim to be inspired by The Beatles but - and this so saddens me - they have failed to grasp that The Beatles were about constant change and evolution. Oasis are repetitive luddites.
- I don't claim to have the monopoly on the black experience and I wouldn't want anybody to think that, but I do have a perspective and I do have a voice.
- There is a sense that as an artist and a human being, I need to assert what being black and British means to me, and by extension what that will mean to my children.
- I grew up in a West African household, where my parents were immigrants - my domestic world was very different to the world I encountered when I left my house and went to school. So with all the success and the fame and the money I have encountered over the years, there was never a sense that I was leaving my roots behind. I'm proud of where I've come from and the lessons my parents have taught me about identity. It was never an option for me to bypass that.
- I've had to learn to be super disciplined - previously I could spend all day and all night working on music, but now I have to be super focused on working in times where I'm not with Savannah [his first-born]
- I feel like I couldn't personally live with myself as a black artist if I didn't articulate what I was seeing.
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