Rag'n'Bone Man Quotes

When I got to New York City when I was 18, I started playing in clubs in Brooklyn - I have good friends and devoted fans on the underground scene, but we were playing for each other at that point - and that was it.

I remember listening to Cube's music when I was like 14 years old, my friends listening to it up in Toronto.

I tried gimmicky stuff 'cause I wanted to get some attention, and remember, you know, in the rap world Seattle was a cave. There was no light.

Growing up in the mid-to-late '90s in London, you start seeing the explosion of drum'n'bass and then the birth of U.K. garage and grime. I decided to focus a lot of my energies as an aspiring MC. It was a very natural way to express yourself as a kid from a certain kind of neighborhood.

Tupac Back' was the first single I had, but prior to that I already had 20-something songs in the street.

I know a lot of grime artists started off on pirate radio, but I missed that era; I was way too young.

It's mad to think I was just a kid from south London, rapping in parks with friends.

A cool & diversified version of a mix tape. The BreakBeat Poets is a thorough and complete summation of Golden Era writers who continue to build the scene of literary and performance poetry.

A lot of punk rock. I listen to various stuff just cuz my friends now listen to a lot of different bands. I listen to a lot of underground stuff like jungle music.

Rap is rock 'n' roll. Rock is when you push the buttons in the system; when you say, I'm not going along with what you're saying. That's rock, whether it's done with guitars, or it's done with just beats.

I listen to him [Chief Keef] the most. I like his older mixtapes a little better though, because old Chief Keef scared me - I thought he was about to pop up out of nowhere with a hoodie on and shoot me.

High school is closer to the core of the American experience than anything else I can think of.

Teenage rebellion is for suburban schoolchildren. Get over it.

It wasn't just music in The Ramones: it was an idea. It was bringing back a whole feel that was missing in rock music – it was a whole push outwards to say something new and different. Originally it was just an artistic type of thing; finally I felt it was something that was good enough for everybody.

I was 15 years old when I was in this band; we were called Stag. We used to wear spandex pants and no underwear - we looked like marbles smugglers.

It's hard to overestimate the teenage appetite for high drama.

There's a lot of good rappers in England at the moment. There's a lot of good dance acts. A lot of good, young guitar acts. I think a lot of groups came from that dole culture of the late 80's/early 90's - it's not as easy now. I think there's a dearth of working class bands.

I got to be about 13 and everyone started playing guitars and being in rock bands. There was no place for me with my trumpet and I wasn't cool anymore. Although now if I played the trumpet it would be the coolest thing in the world.

A mixtape is for the street, it's something you without necessarily thinking about it, because you have to stay in the game. It's like writing an e-mail saying hello to your friends.

I have tried... believe me, I have tried to like rap music. It makes me feel so very, very old. I have tried to get home with the downies.

When I was a teen, or like 18 to early 20s, I used to go to festivals all the time. I'd save all my money.

Appalling numbers of youth have been led into a cynical ultra-sophisticated attitude which regards drinking as a badge of social aptitude, which makes a fetish of sport and professes eroticism as a way of life. A perverted and insane pictorial art, lewd exhibitionistic dancing and jungle music form the spiritual norm of this sector of America's youth.

I like to go on YouTube to see the underground sounds, what the kids are listening to, and kind of gauge my music around that.

Mixtape legend, underground kings... Looking for the right way to do the wrong things

Baby, high school's over. High school's never over.