"I got into M.I.A. at a really weird time. I got into her just two years ago. I mean, I first heard her years ago and I thought it was really cool and interesting but I didn't really pay proper attention. But then I listened again two years ago and I listened to her new record and I was like, ""Yeah, whatever"", but I played it some more and I got really obsessed with it. She always maintains this incredible delivery. I guess she's rapping but to me it's the same as singing. Again, it's about moulding your voice to get the sound you want. Rappers do that a lot. I just like it and I don't have a real explanation as to why. I just think it's really good. She's an original and has a unique perspective. I went back to her other records and so I explored her in a way that I hadn't done with any other artist in years. I was on tour and it was just somehow helpful for me at that time. It added some life to my world."

"If we now want to get into films that — I arrogantly didn’t ask you if you would know anything about them; I just assumed, and assumption is the mother of all f—ups. Me, I’m Asian. I was raised in Asia and, to be honest with you, my favorite films of all time are really [Akira] Kurosawa films. He was a friend of mine. Yojimbo, Akahige meaning “Red Beard,” [and] Shichinin no samurai meaning “Seven Samurai,” I would say those are probably my three favorite films of all time. Even though Shichinin no samurai is the more famous one, I would probably pick Red Beard and Yojimbo.Red Beard is one of the most important movies in my life because it’s… I don’t want to say a movie about me, but it’s a movie about someone I tried to emulate subconsciously — or accidentally I should say — in that I am a martial artist, I am a healer, and I am a warrior, and those are the three kind of components that really make up Toshirô [Mifune]’s kind of character, you know? So I particularly relate to that movie on a very deep level."

"It's everything that I love about music. It's hip hop, trip hop, acid jazz, alternative... I don’t want to call it R n B, but there's some soul in there. Very dark and tortured sounding soul, but soul nonetheless. It's fusion, is what it is. What I liked most about rock music, besides the music I make, is when I don't understand what they're talking about. Geoff Barrow... See, I've never seen Geoff Barrow. I don't know how he looks, although he probably doesn't look like he's supposed to be making this kind of music. I heard stories about it, how they’d record certain stuff to wax and then sample it. Just going through a lot of shit to make the record. It's just so grand, and you think of the artist - who gave them the blank cheque to go to that extreme!? Someone could have easily rapped on all of that stuff. It sounds almost like Wu Tang production, something RZA did. I can hear rhyming over it, but Beth Gibbons has this pixie-kind of vocal, with that ethereal and enchanted kind of thing. It's awesome."

"Last but not least, man, will be a classic that really holds up and it’s not a comedy. I don’t want to end this on a neutral or serious note, but Rebel Without a Cause, man. I really, really dig that movie. I really dig that movie and I really dig James Dean. I dig what he was about. I’ve watched interviews and movies about him and stuff, and I just dig him as an artist and I really think that that captures… It’s a coming-of-age story, too, but it’s not the ones that we’re used to — that we’re going to laugh at and feel like, “Oh, they won out.” He’s coming from a very dark place as a teenager, which we all go through. I’m sure a lot of us haven’t been in the darkness as long as his character has, but we get how that feels and it’s kind of cool to see him simmering in that emotion. It’s not anticipated at all, so it’s really seamless. It’s really nice to see. You kind of see him growing up in, like, the scrappiest version it can look like."