If I lose forcing the pace all the way, well, at least I can live with myself. But if it's a slow pace, and I get beaten by a kicker who leaches off the front, then I'll always wonder, 'What if...?'
I think I initially started inventing characters in my songs because I didn't want to write directly about myself. Also, as a kid, I loved all the character names in Beatles songs, like Eleanor Rigby and Lovely Rita and Mean Mr. Mustard and Maxwell and Rocky Raccoon.
I got FL studios; I looked up how to make beats and how to record myself, and then I just started making music from there.
I come from a family of teasers myself. My grandfather was from Liverpool, and he had a dry sense of humor, and he would tease us terribly. My brother Beau was so skilled in his teasing that he could get a rise out of me by simply pointing at me.
I think religion is very personal. I definitely identify as Muslim. I consider myself practicing, but I don't think people who observe me from the outside would think of me as devout, and that doesn't bother me because one of the beauties of Islam is the fact that it is personal: you read the Koran, and what you believe is what you believe.
I never thought of myself in comedy at all... I loved going to the theatre and seeing people wearing beautiful clothes come down the staircase and start to dance.
Maybe I don't have an accurate view of myself. For instance, I keep getting cast as 'The Beautiful Girl,' but I don't happen to think I'm beautiful.
I wanted to be a cheerleader, like my sister was - all the most popular and beautiful girls are cheerleaders and I wanted that, and it demolished this vision of myself. That's when I found the piano, when music saved me; that's when I first attempted to write my own songs.
All these cities I go to, I never see them. They may be the most beautiful places in the world, but I'll just usually go to the nearest bar. I need a couple of hours by myself.
I consider myself very fortunate. I have a beautiful wife who supports my work and is raising our daughter when I'm out on the road.
Surrounding myself with beautiful women keeps me young.
I hate it that there are so many beautiful women in the world, and I can't have all of them for myself.
Malcolm X raised my consciousness about myself and my people and other people more than any person I know. I knew him before he became Malcolm X.
Maybe I should find myself one of those sexy British soccer stars. David Beckham is hot. But I've got a hell of a lot of competition.
The United States is where I want to finish. I love the States. I want to have a subscription to NBA and go with my children to every game. I can already see myself there. I do not yet know the city, but why not play for Beckham's franchise in Miami? Playing under Beckham would be the best.
I'd rather kill myself than dress like Victoria Beckham in towering heels day after day.
If I seem to boast more than is becoming, my excuse is that I brag for humanity rather than for myself.
You know, as a young child, I lay in my bedroom and I swore to myself then: 'I'm not going to smoke and I'm not going to drink.' And I said I'm not going to just say that when I'm a kid. I'm going to stick to that as an adult. I kept that in mind my whole life.
The early music I heard was Top of the Pops. But in bedrooms, around the house with my brother playing the Sex Pistols, Sham 69 and the Ham and all these groups then going into that sort of mod turnover scene and then going into the New Romantics scene the coming of age myself in the mid-eighties and into the noughties, it was changing.
When I jumped off a roof in Cannes in a bee costume, I looked ridiculous. But this is my business; I have to humiliate myself.
