"Another movie I love is a movie called Claudine. James L. Jones is in that movie. Diahann Carroll is in this movie. Oh man, I’m not a big crier, but the movie resonates and just stays with me the whole time. You know what? I used to love some Diahann Carroll, brother. The movie was about a single mother who meets a guy and they end up falling in love. He takes on this whole family. She had like five kids, living in Harlem, with five kids, and this guy was a regular garbage man who had kids of his own. He was trying to balance his old life and the stress of being a father to his own kids. But at the same time he loved this woman, he loved her kids, and he wanted to do better for her. He wanted to be with her, but he just tried to work everything out. He ended up leaving her, and then coming back because he loved the kids, and they ended up getting married and all that kind of stuff. All the trial, the jubilation — it’s all about family and what they go through. The growing pains, you know, how the kids fell in love with him and they ended up looking for him, and he broke their heart. Claudine is a beautiful movie. I went at 13 years old, man. I was in love with Diahann Carroll at 13 years old. I don’t know if I could’ve stepped in those shoes and been a daddy to these little kids, but I loved her, she was a beautiful lady."

"And the last movie I want to recommend is a movie that I’m a part of and it’s called American Gangster. I started to say Man with the Iron Fists. [laughs] Man with the Iron Fists because of the power of dreams, to show that a kid who watched movies and loved movies could one day grow and work with his favorite actors, and bring a movie to life. But that’d be number six, alright? Number five would be American Gangster, because not only is it a film that I’m a part of, but the reason I’m so invested into this movie is because Hollywood invested over $100 million into a black man’s story. This doesn’t happen a lot. It’s a story that captured a time in Harlem when drugs were rampant, music was growing, this whole culture was building up. And even though it shows a negative black man, it still showed the same thing The Godfather showed: the power of family. He did it for family. And it also showed the genius of the black criminal mind when it comes to being an entrepreneur and branding. He had a brand. And being a guy that started a brand like Wu-Tang Clan, when I heard how he made his brand Blue Magic and how he tried to protect his brand, and how he had to fight against others who were infringing upon his brand, it really resonated with me. Denzel Washington gave a great performance, Russell Crowe did as well, and that was a big breakout role for me as well, that movie."

"This had a massive impact on the way my parents brought us up, especially my dad, who's a singer himself. Here were a family from the North digging into old songs and traditions, and it made Dad really interested in doing the same. He became a member of a longsword team – I know – and then he got into reviving Mummers' plays, including the only surviving Mummers' play including its own dance. Every Boxing Day, us kids would be dragged down to see it, Dad playing this character who would be killed and brought to life again [laughs]. So many of our rituals as a family were about similar things: carolling on the green, singing folk in the pub and having this real passion for the seasons. For me, revisiting tradition is very rooted in wanting to recognise social struggles, the situations of the working classes, and the pastoral. These songs aren't about looking backwards and inwards, but about learning about the realities of your culture and wanting to share it with others. I remembering going to a Swedish festival some time ago, being encouraged to share songs from where I was from, and realising then what a very powerful currency those songs were. They help you connect with other countries' forgotten stories and emotions – and actually, that's something that happened to me in Harare doing Africa Express as well. These Ethiopian women encouraging me to sing for them, and then watching their reactions… it's very moving seeing people respond to these songs from different parts of the world. It makes you realise there's so much that connects us."