"To me, they had the one of the best senses of humor in hip-hop. At the time, people were trying to be serious and shit. They were like, ‘Hey, man it’s about rapping and getting girls.’ Their album had like 20 tracks on it. It’s a sick album. Some of the samples on there are classics to me. That’s another album where I can just always have that on my iPhone and be playing that in my car. If I am going to go for a run, I’ll throw that on. I just think those dudes were hilarious and they did it right and they weren’t cynical. They weren’t about dropping knowledge during that time of conscious rap. They were these smart dudes that were like, ‘Just because we are smart doesn’t mean we have to preach."

"I will give Last Cab In California honorable mention, but I will stick with Deee-Lite, World Clique. Again, I am all about production. I just like listening to beats and cool sounds. They didn’t sound like anything at the time. I know everybody knows ‘Groove is in the Heart’ but that’s like the fifth best song on that album. They even had the look. They were funky, ‘70s, but hip-hop at the same time. One dude was Asian with goggles on and she had this soul voice and they had heavy piano. I always liked it. That’s just another album that’s upbeat. Maybe not the most masculine one, but whatever, man. I don’t care. I just picture ‘90s black chicks in biker shorts on the grind with Eric B. breaking down to those songs."

"I think what’s cool about Slayer is no matter how old their albums are, it’s the one band to me that their sound is immortal. It never sounds corny to me. You can go back and listen to some Pantera and Metallica albums and you’re like, ‘OK, great music.’ But Slayer you go back and they always sound fresh and hard as hell. It’s always just a punch right to the face. I think that’s cool that their albums are almost undying. I like all different types of music. I don’t like going to any specifics. I switch with the seasons. I’ll get into an electronic kick and then I’ll get into rap. Listen to too much hip-hop you start to have some flavor for some guitar and next thing you know you’re listening to metal or hardcore"

"I first heard the record in Joe's [Goddard, Hot Chip] house, and I think we would have been about 16 or something. He'd been told about Palace by Kieran [Hebden, Four Tet], and we would all go to the Beggar's Banquet record shop in Putney after school, and buy and listen to things in there. We'd buy hip-hop, different indie records and pop albums. It was particularly good for hip-hop, and these lo-fi indie rock records. That's where we bought the album, and we were in Joe's room where we would work on Hot Chip recordings, and it sounded so different to anything I'd ever heard before, because it's so slow-paced. Will Oldham's voice is so unusual when you hear it, and particularly at that time before he'd developed into being slightly more well-known, his voice was particularly eccentric - it cracks in some interesting ways; it's not a formally trained voice - over that sparse piano and drum machine backing. The song that I first heard was 'You Have Cum In Your Hair And Your Dick Is Hanging Out' - a memorable title! The song doesn't have those words in it. It's just a beautiful heartbreaking ballad, and it's hard to know sometimes what that dense lyrical terrain is all about with Will Oldham. Some of the symbolism is quite hard to read, but it makes an emotional impact straight away. It took me a long time to get to know that record. I bought my own copy in Lancaster when I went to visit a friend at university, and I just kept going back to it. Each time there would be another song that I would get to know and love. I had a long car journey with all of Hot Chip, and some friends of ours from a festival recently, and we listened to the record, and it was another breakthrough where it became more meaningful to me."

"This came out a month after Ride formed. They were such an important band for us. In fact, I’ve just checked and we formed in between the release of the two EP’s You Made Me Realise and Feed Me With Your Kiss, which were both massively influential on Ride. But the album was a step forward even from the EPs. It had a sound all of its own. The touch was lighter, more hip-hop influenced, the arrangements were less like jams and more like studio constructions, the songs were short and concise; there’s just so much going on with this album that shows how they were grasping the moment that they were having as a band. In particular, Colm O Ciosoig really stands out as being really important to the album. His drumming throughout is incredible, and his song, ‘(When You Wake) You’re Still in a Dream,’ is my favorite song on the record."

"They're so great. I've heard this, and I don't know if it's true, but they are one of the most sampled bands in hip hop. They are so fucking ahead of their time too. They're still together too, that's so cool. What is there to say? Innovative. Ahead of their time. Powerful. From The Bronx. Three black women, a family affair. It was punk. They were one of those groups respected by everybody and could acknowledge that they're one of the most groundbreaking bands for them. They really changed the sound of things. Without them I don't think there would have been a bass-driven punk, new-wave scene. I like to think of people in the New York punk scene going to see ESG shows and thinking it was really good. At dance parties if you put on an ESG song people will lose their fucking minds. It's one of the best things to watch ever. "