Being on stage, it's like, Ooo-kay, now I remember why all this is going wrong or right! It's very much my element.

I'm not musically trained and I'm not all these other things. I'm creative with a keyboard and a drum machine, but I can't really make these perfect minimal musical executions - all the things that would be nice with all these refined poems.

I know what love is because I lost it at an early age.

I've always been aggressive and an underdog, and my dad was worried that I would always be that: constantly seeking inspiration from negativity.

That was how I got into music and art was being a battle kid from Jersey, so I didn't have these wonderful ways of learning commitment, dedication, practicing skill.

What I remove from my writing is linear context. It's not really important to me, because it doesn't give me chills to see, you flip the latch and the lock opens and then you can open the top of the chest and inside the chest is this. That doesn't give me chills, to think in that vein. So I've always kind of avoided it.

At best doing art you feel like you're led by something that doesn't involve you.

Whether it's just the career path of doing independent music, being an artist, however you want to pigeon-hole it, it creates a certain type of character.

I am not concerned about the 80 BMP consistency law of popular music. I'm concerned with other things, and they're very valid.

I can deal with all the pangs of having to find money in 20 different places because you don't really reap the whirlwind with this cutting-edge music.

I've been writing a lot about just the aspects of luck and being picked, and how of course it's always how one perceives themselves in the world, as a bit of a scapegoat or a bit of a hero. Everyone generally has about a 60/40 split that volleys, between those two.

I'm not the kind of artist that wants to get a sound, refine it, and do it 'til I'm 50 so that it's the purest amber of my one way.

I change my direction, I can't even help it. It's sort of like the fortune and misfortune of being a rapper.

I wonder a lot about making things meaningful. You want to do meaningful work and make art, but you're making records, which is good, but you don't want to weight them - it's a very curious thing.