"Well, I think one thing is I love seeing the 15th century in black and white, in the 20th century. The physical imagery… that scene in the balloon at the beginning of the movie, the way that it’s cut together and the way that it functions and what he’s looking at. The sound, the music. Tarkovsky is one of my favorite directors and I think there’s just a great abstract quality in his films, where you see something and, as you’re looking at it, it transforms in front of your eyes. Things happen that you can’t believe you’re looking at — a horse falling down a flight of stairs; all of a sudden there’s a moment where you’ve got Christ, in the snow, carrying his cross up a hill. The kind of subliminal violence that occurs — when this guy gouges the eyes out of one of those journeymen, artisans that are leaving the reconstruction of a church; the apathy in the violence reminds me of the W.H. Auden poem, “Musee des Beaux Arts.” The old masters, they really knew about human suffering. And I guess in that particular film, what I’m thinking about is the length of the takes, and the surprise of what you actually see being filmed. The way slow motion is used in that movie also; the way that movies are not like that anymore. The scale and the depth of field of what you’re seeing is vast. So there’s a poetic quality to that. I’d have to mention The Passenger also, because there’s a moment when Antonioni has Jack Nicholson sticking his arms outside of a cable car, and for that moment you just have this sense of observing observation — that’s a big part of moviemaking to me, or painting. That kind of filmmaking, where the camera is still but everything around it is moving, and moving at different speeds, is something that I’m attracted to."

"‘Autonomy’ was a massive wakeup call for me. I bought the album the day it came out, I got the bus after school and it was in a silver plastic bag. When I got home and put it on I knew the singles, but when I got to ‘Autonomy’ it was genuinely a new kind of rock music. “There’s no way I can ever separate the fact that I was aware it was from my town. If it had been from Düsseldorf I would have been mind blown, but I was more mind blown it was from Manchester, because it could have been from Düsseldorf. I knew it couldn’t have been from Los Angeles and sounded like The Doobie Brothers, Fleetwood Mac or Jackson Browne and knowing it now I don’t think it could have come from London. “London at that time was very dominated by the sound of The Clash and The Pistols and in spite of what people like to say it was quite testosteroney and straight, certainly compared to the Buzzcocks and Magazine. Wire were a different matter, they had an arch femininity and an intellectual aspect about them, but Buzzcocks sounded like my environment, in much the same way Joy Division were going to a year later, the way The Smiths did a few years after that and the way The Fall did. “I might have been projecting, but when I put it all together it sounded so modern and so Manchester and it gave me an insight into my city, modern Manchester. I was always looking for clues, for a key to pick up, to open and go through the next door as a musician and a thinker and I probably still am, that’s the best way I can describe it. ‘Autonomy’ was like a key, it was ‘This riff is very, very deliberate, it’s not bluesy, it’s very bold and it doesn’t sound anything like classic rock.’ It’s really in your face, the words are very clever and sang in quite an effeminate, challenging vocal. I love The Clash but to me it was better than ‘White Riot’, it was this cross between aggression and arty. “The punks I’d see around Manchester personified that, they looked like little thugs and they were very effeminate, so again it’s that thing about the feminisation of rock music. I hadn’t realised that actually, but almost everything I’ve mentioned has got a non-testosterone aspect to it. That was quite a moment and being that age, fourteen, fifteen, you’re so fearless and open to being free, well I was anyway, I was looking for things to give me juice to fire that fearlessness up. I think you see through bullshit really well when you’re that age, when you get older you think too much!"

"One is probably the biggest surprise for my fanbase. If they were to say, “What’s the movie that would most surprise someone that Omari likes?” it would be Mean Girls. I love Mean Girls. Freaking love it. I think she’s at an age where she can watch it. So, we had it on, days before we get on the plane to come back to New York, because obviously, this time of year, we keep coming back for the start of Power. She started kindergarten, so I thought she’s old enough to watch it. But that fight scene in the hallway, with the girls, when everybody goes crazy on each other. She ran out, into her playroom, and I looked at my wife, like, “It’s Mean Girls. It’s not that bad.” What I realized is, part of my daughter’s reaction was because it’s so… not necessarily over the top, but it is. Where it’s not over the top is, girls, as you and I know, that’s the way they fight. Whereas, in kindergarten, we punched each other in the face, and then the guy that you punched becomes your best friend for 35 years. So, it’s just the level of truth in it that makes it so freaking funny. The level of how mean girls can be to each other just makes it really, really funny. Also, I just find Tina Fey’s writing to be very subtle, and so good."