I've done a lot of albums and I kinda know when I'm onto something that was inspirational for me to record and create and this was one of those projects where I really enjoyed making the album.

Hip-hop's always reached out to kids. If you look at the last 10 big albums it might seem ironic. But when I look at the history of this music it's always had a lot of positivity.

I enjoy making solo albums because over the years it's evolved into more of a genuine personal expression of story-telling and day dreams and I work in a way that has more control.

I'm sick to death of people saying we've made 11 albums that sounds exactly the same Infact we've made 12 albums that sound exactly the same.

We had a huge audience we sold truckloads of albums. If we do something that's cool people will listen to it. If we don't we would be selling people short.

It's pretty cool that people will pay for something even though they don't have to. It's totally different now to back in the day. Now you're paying for a record because you believe in the band. In the future that will be the only time people will pay for albums because there's some kind of connection.

I got a chance to have my dream come true and I wanted to make sure I made the decision as to when I dropped my last album. If I don't feel like this album is an incredible piece of work then I'm cool with the albums I've done. I don't have to put out another album.

For my birthday this year my girlfriends - who knew I'd just inherited my dad's turntable - gave me a carton of albums like 'Blue Kentucky Girl ' by Emmylou Harris and 'Off the Wall ' by Michael Jackson. It's all stuff we grew up with. I mean you can't have a music collection without Prince's 'Purple Rain' - it just can't be done!

I don't like to produce albums. I hate producing albums as a matter of fact because I'm an obsessed mixer and I can't leave it alone.