I'm on the rise and whatnot, but I'm not the man to say, 'All right, world, here's grime.' It's gonna take me, Skepta, JME, Novelist and Lethal Bizzle, to say, 'I'm sick, he's sick, he's sick, he's sick'. Not one man can do it.
I'm thrilled that country music fans like my stuff, but so do a lot of people outside of country music, people who just love music. My goal is more to reach music lovers than to appeal to a genre. I love country music, and I'm proud to represent it, but I don't obsess over it as a category.
Whatever films we make we should be honest in the genre we are making.
I respect the Grammys, being a writer. But me being an artist representing hip hop? No.
I'm just trying to make the best music I can possibly make and represent the new class or whatever. Myself and Cudi and Asher and B.o.B. That's all I can do at this point.
Edward Said talks about Orientalism in very negative terms because it reflects the prejudices of the west towards the exotic east. But I was also having fun thinking of Orientalism as a genre like Cowboys and Indians is a genre – they’re not an accurate representation of the American west, they’re like a fairy tale genre.
I don't think I represent all things dubstep. I just like clubbing, so those are the sounds I've chosen to work with.
I'm not trying to dog any artist or genre, but to me, there is a lot of diversity missing from the radio. I miss turning the radio on and getting punched in the soul with a great lyric.
When you're a young writer and you look at people praising a big hefty anthology that has uncovered a long lost genre, it can be disorienting to look inside it and think, "But what it's uncovered still isn't me. What does this mean? Do I not belong in this genre, or is there more of the genre yet to find?"
