"They were sampling Hall & Oates, Steely Dan, and all this music that I actually liked. And it was the way they did it as well: not giving a damn and taking whole lumps out of stuff. It was very challenging to what anyone expected from young black artists; the connections they were making in the music didn’t have that overlay that other hip-hop artists had of being dangerous and misogynistic. There was an amount of silliness in it. I found it incredibly engaging. Wire’s never really shared much taste as a band. In the beginning we would talk about music, but it diverged over the years. It’s about the work. It always has been. It’s never been about, “I’ve heard this record, let’s try to do that.” Whenever I try to do something that sounds like something else, it ends up sounding so far from it that nobody could understand how I made the connection."

"Nâ Hawa is an icon. She's still alive, she's younger than Nina Simone. For me, she's an example because she's one of those artists who started to push the female voice in Malian music. When I watched her videos when she was super famous in the past, I could never imagine that I could live like her. She's got the blues too. She never knew her mum, she passed away when she was giving birth to her. She always sang about tragic things but from her I realised that you can sing about your problems without complaining. She never complains, but she tells you her story. She was like a philosopher. She talks about normal life, how you can love each other, how you can live in peace, even if you've had bad experiences. She's a mum to me, in terms of writing. She always wrote about women, children, society, but with some beautiful melodies."