"This was something of an anomaly in Faith No More’s catalogue, from a film made in the early ‘90s called Judgement Night. The soundtrack was a sort of experiment where they would get bands - white people, essentially - and they would couple them with hip-hop groups and see what happened. This was one of my first introductions to hip-hop to be honest and it wasn’t even ‘proper’ hip-hop, it was bands playing with rapping over the top. “I just thought it was absolutely amazing and I couldn’t get enough of it, this worn-out tape. ‘Another Body Murdered’ was one of the best tracks on it and it ended up introducing me to loads of bands and loads of rappers and this wasn’t like nu-metal, it was mostly edgy rappers. But then there was also a track ‘Fallin’ with Teenage Fanclub featuring De La Soul, things like that. It gave me a really broad introduction via a medium I already understood, which was bands. “But because it was a faceless tape, I didn’t really know who everyone was or who was doing what on each track. I didn’t realise then what cultural lines might have been crossed, because it was all just blurred into one: here’s the guitar, here’s somebody rapping. It didn’t matter to me at all and I think that was a healthy way to discover that sort of music."

"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."

"This album was like, ‘Yup, he knows exactly what he’s doing.’ Every album that he does is going to be dope. ‘Good Life’ is a classic to me forever. You put that CD on in any situation and things will start jumping. People will sweat that College Dropout, it was cool. I got a lot of songs on there that I like. Late Registration was real hot. He let people know how good he was with production on that album. He had songs that kind of trailed off and he could do his thing and there was no one rapping. On My Beautiful Dark Twisted Fantasy, to me, you can dial it back. People sweated him for doing his thing and sure, do your thing. But I don’t know, three of those songs I could of have gone with ending 60 seconds earlier."

"I was later than James on Public Enemy, he’d be copying all the raps. You’d go down his house and he’d be rapping ‘It Takes A Nation Of Millions’ to the record, like I’d be singing along to Ian McCulloch, which was really disconcerting - he really nailed it. I guess <>i>Fear Of A Black Planet is the bigger, more obvious album but it just felt like the rap equivalent of London Calling to me. It was really extensive and scattershot, obviously ‘Fight The Power’ was the main point of entry, but ‘Burn Hollywood Burn’ and ‘Who Stole The Soul?’ in particular are some of the best angry lyrics ever written. It felt like some sort of peak. I love the idea of NWA being the nihilistic, horrible Sex Pistols and Public Enemy being The Clash. I always loved those comparisons, and that album reminded me of a time when you thought things were possible. Before you were defeated."

"I remember hearing this when I was a little kid, I probably shouldn't have because it's lyrically so dirty. In the neighbourhood I grew up in every car would be driving by playing that record. Too Short is from Oakland California which is pretty close to where I grew up in the Bay Area. It was a local rap record in a way. I wanted to put a rap record in there because rap was such a huge influence on my youth. That is one that's probably less well known. It's very minimal, it must have been made on 808 and then there's the rapping. The way that he builds his vocals, he pretty much rapped the whole thing twice and then made it stereo, so it's got this kind of cool sound. I think he was one of the first people to do that. The lyrical content is really vulgar, but super fun to listen to. When I listen to rap today, well it's hard for me to say I'm a fan of rap music, the majority of it I don't like."

"It all started with us on the bus with a few guitars just singing the melody to what became 'The Jean Genie', but it was just naïve and silly. Then, a week later, Bowie came and said: 'Alright, I've finished that one!' And it was of course nowhere near what we had been singing lyrically, but the feel was there. It was one of those nods to good time rock & roll from the early days, spanning from the blues days right into the future. Although it was a very simple song, the lyrics were almost like a rap before rap came out, just with a blues rock backing. He was rapping about the weird scenes we were hanging out in in New York at the time. It just seemed to sum up a whole few years of the 1970s for us. There was weirdness in there, things you couldn't understand, sex, drugs and rock & roll are all in that song. It was, again, David going ahead and churning out a hit. And that one was a first take – that's what's on the record."