I meet so many people that just sort of say, "I want to thank you for your music. It really helped me" or "It changed my life."

I went to Ealing Art School, in London, the year after Pete Townshend left. Music was a sideline to everything we did, and the school was a breeding ground for musicians.

Life is a journey that's measured not in miles or years but in experiences, and the route your life takes is built not of roads but of songs.

I'm not a gangsta rapper. I rap about things that happen to me. I got shot five times. People was trying to kill me.

Even when I was a mailman. That job required no great skill, so once you got it down, you had a lot of free time to daydream and make up songs.

In Liverpool we'd only done one-hour sessions. In Hamburg we had to play for eight hours. We played very loud, bang, bang, all the time. The Germans loved it.