The music I make and the process of acting, for me, are both about trying to understand people and get inside what makes us tick. That's the main thing that excites me. Our sense of who we really are and what drives us.

The racism in South Asia is the most specific racism in the world. It's like racism against a slightly different language group. It's like micro-racism.

I go to a lot of stand-up comedy. I find more inspiration from observational stuff than from rap.

You know my parents, man, they're just the most loving, encouraging... They're like those people who define themselves through their role as parents before people in their own rights.

The camera or the microphone in the booth is merciless. If you don't believe what you're saying, it hears it. If you don't believe it, it sees it in your eyes, it hears it in your voice that there isn't the conviction there.

I have always been restless, had a lot of energy.

I think that with piracy and tighter funds being around, people are realising that the game to play is to try and win people's respect with bold film making and then win a special place in people's collections, rather than just having the biggest opening weekends.

First, you have stereotypes, and that will be the black drug dealer, the east Asian kung fu master, the Middle Eastern terrorist in 'True Lies.' Then you have stuff that takes place on culturally specific terrain, that engages with it, but actually subverts assumptions. 'Smashes' stereotypes. That's where I've come into the game.

My music is a very personal reflection of me, whereas, acting a role, thats a reflection of another character.

No-one gets a job at 16 and stays in it until 60 any more we're connected to more people simultaneously than ever before, whether online or on our phones. We wear so many different hats within one day, one week, a lifetime.

It's crazy how we always hate the things closest to us.

There's this thing, something in the water in America that is so intoxicating as well, that's like your dreams can come true. You can have it all. You can be the master of your destiny. There's this thing it encourages - this illusion of your significance.

The only people who have doubts about the sincerity of my music are people who come to it relatively late, off the back of having seen me in a film. Acting is about being other people, and music is about being myself.