"I think the next one was Dead Man Walking. One, it was a brilliant film with brilliant performances, but I thought the filmmaker put forth the question without giving us the answers. And I thought he did it masterfully. You know, it’s a question of capital punishment. It wasn’t preachy, it wasn’t didactic, it wasn’t sort of a polemic that you kind of go, “Let’s investigate this like an English class.” It was telling you a great story because, you know, all the audience wants to hear is what happened next. So it was telling you a great story, and based on the story telling I found my perspective changing. I had great sympathy for Sean Penn’s character and then suddenly I didn’t. And I thought he deserved exactly what he got. And then in the next fifteen minutes, my point of view would change. That’s why I thought it really involved you on an emotional level on the question of capital punishment. But even more than that I think it showed what film can do and what really great storytelling can do."

"I could go on and on. Like The Searchers, with John Wayne. It’s a wonderful film. Brilliantly shot, you know. And Wayne’s playing a bigot in it. A man who’s got a hatred about him, but by the end of it he changes. It’s such a great performance, hero playing a man like that. But you know, I got a million films; I could probably give you another five or 10 that would be totally different. You know a film that changed my mind about everything? I was in New York years ago, walking along on my own, and I saw a film called The Tin Drum. I went in and it started and I thought, “F–k, it’s a German film,” and they’ve got these subtitles and I thought, “I can’t be bothered with this.” But I sat there, and within 10 minutes I forgot about reading it and I just sat there watching this film. What a film. And it kind of changed my mind about film-making."

"Westside Story was probably the biggest thing in my life as teenager walking along the streets of London, me and my friends were always trying to imitate the Jets’ dancing! My favourite songs? There were so many, but Leonard Bernstein was a genius and I just thought if I could be anybody, I would be a composer like Bernstein because his music was just so powerful and it also has a jazz tilt. He was doing things with music that I discovered much later. a lot of it was inspired by The Planets by Holst, with this jagged, staccato, kicking in the music with songs like ‘America’. And I thought, yeah I wanted to be in America, although I wanted to avoid all the gang fights! There were so many messages in that film and my all-time favourite song would probably be ‘Somewhere’. That reflects that ultimate aim in life to find a place away from the turmoil, pain and suffering to a place of peace, happiness"

"I got into that around 2008. That again was all about hopelessness, there was some positivity in there, but I think he had a lot to say on this album. He never bettered it. That second track, the line, ""Cuz you never know when you're going to go!"" Chilling, really. I haven't listened to it for a long time, but you have the sense of a cold afternoon in the projects, an afternoon spent doing nothing, walking up the stairs to your apartment, the hopelessness of being a young black kid. He wasn't really a funny guy, Nas. But brutal. He must have been educating himself. Books are a great source, aren't they. Some literature was held in some circles, myths about certain books, what I tend to find with a lot of rappers is this religious connection, even though some won't admit it, black culture is very connected to religion, more so than white people. It's kind of that as well, the fear of the wrath of god."