“The problem with working with a record label is they maybe a song I want to make a video for that they will refuse to make a video for because they don’t see that song as a single. And I found that very frustrating.”

And through doing that I realised that actually these stories were very visual in my head and I couldn’t wait to make the videos.

So, I really enjoyed doing the Strickland Banks album. But there’s no point in my trying to release underground hip-hop music on a major label. That part of my talent, or part of my art, had to live somewhere else and feature film was the perfect vehicle for it.

With hip-hop music, it allowed me to talk about political and social things but also to tell stories.

I love the way I make hip-hop and I refuse to make pop-rap. I don’t refuse to make mainstream music, which is why I did a soul record. There was no reason why soul music couldn’t get played on the radio and I still wanted to have a relationship with my record label.

Anyone who puts 110% into their work deserves as much success as they can get.

I found very early on when I became a hip-hop artist that I loved telling stories. Actually, when I was trying to get a message across it was more powerful when I told a story, rather than if I used a metaphor or if I preached about an issue.

I was a soul singer first and I’d write love songs. I find with soul music it’s really hard to write about anything else. But I was 15 at the time when I was doing that and, to be honest, I’d never experienced love, so the words were kind of meaningless.

I didn’t make a film because I wanted a starring role. I made a film because I wanted to tell a story and I wanted to prove that I could direct.

Nothing appears to be something. The human experience is a senseory organ for the divine self. Through these eyes, the divine gets to see itself in form.

My professional persona never loosens its grip, keeping an eye on me at all times.

A kitten is the most irresistible comedian in the world. Its wide-open eyes gleam with wonder and mirth. It darts madly at nothing at all, and then, as though suddenly checked in the pursuit, prances sideways on its hind legs with ridiculous agility and zeal.

There is still vitality under the winter snow, even though to the casual eye it seems to be dead.

When I think of art I think of beauty. Beauty is the mystery of life. It is not in the eye it is in the mind. In our minds there is awareness of perfection.

Place (or put) a spider on top of a mountain, it will only try to catch flies; alas, they are many those who, in the figurative meaning, have spider’s eyes.

Re-vision – the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction – is for woman more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival.

Re-vision — the act of looking back, of seeing with fresh eyes, of entering an old text from a new critical direction – is for women more than a chapter in cultural history: it is an act of survival.