Top 50 Kano Quotes

The first song I did was when I was 15 it was called ‘Party Mode.’

There are too many kids who don’t think they can make it to the top. They give up before they have even started, but in my eyes everyone can succeed and it’s really important that young people believe in themselves.

If you’re going to do something, it should be fresh and it shouldn’t have been done before.

I have to go into the studio to make my second album knowing I’m making an album. When I first started making songs I didn’t have an album in mind, that’s why a lot of them I like – I’m talking about how I haven’t got a deal, how I’m living, you can never really top the first time, but we’ll see how it goes.

It’s fine to keep releasing tune after tune if you can keep up with that pace but I can’t. I’m not the guy that will have the hot tune every month. That’s not me!

People think I can’t go shopping – that’s their perception of how famous I am.

For me, writing and creating music can be quite a solitary thing.

Music changes every year, but some people are great at riding waves and then they’re doing something different next year.

Personally, I enjoyed school as much as the next kid. I was into art and every sport going from football to table tennis, so I kept busy. I never bunked a day off and left with 9 GCSEs, if I remember correctly.

I started writing lyrics to clash with other people in the playground. Now I’ve developed my own voice and my own style. There’s no one out there that does the same thing as me.

Grime don’t mean nothing, we never called it grime. It’s just a word someone associated with us. I wouldn’t say all my music’s grimy.

He will go down as a legend along with Elvis and the Beatles and Michael Jackson. Bob Marley is right up there. He was a leader for reggae music – he really made it appeal to a world audience.

The key to acting well is to allow yourself to be vulnerable.

That is part of the problem, that lack of belief in yourself because you don’t see success around you. I guess that breeds defeatism, so yes there does need to be resources out there and support that will nurture talent that I believe is there, and passion that I know is there.

I like Jay-Z for his lyrics, his flow; he’s always forward thinking.

I’m not into releasing throwaway music for the sake of it.

Initially we were spitting lyrics over garage beats, in that eight-bar gap where there wasn’t a vocal. But we were rebellious towards garage because they were rebellious towards us; a lot of their gatekeepers said grime was too violent.

Hip-hop is the art of story-telling.

Me and Skepta, we’re kind of from the same world but have totally different-sounding albums. That’s why I get funny sometimes when people say I’m a grime artist. Not in a negative way, but I don’t feel it’s a true representation of the music I’m making.

The Wire’ was from a police perspective – in terms of the streets and that, it was probably like, thirty per cent. ‘Top Boy’ is really from the perspective of the quote-unquote criminal. It’s getting into the mind of these people and why they do what they do. It’s bigger than just ‘Woke up and wanted to be bad one day.’

I think Mighty Moe really got me into a whole different style of MCing. There were a lot of people with simple lyrics and simple word play- he really pushed out the boat.

Biggie has definitely stood the test of time. He’s the reason Jay-Z and loads of other rappers are who they are. His flow and wordplay is brilliant – the stories he would tell are just nuts.

There’s an energy in people coming together and singing.

I’m laid-back. Sometimes, I think being laid-back will be my downfall; I’m a little too good at sitting on the sofa and doing nothing. But what can I say? It’s who I am, how I am, how I’ve always been.

Everybody has flaws, and every country has flaws. But you can still love something even though you know it’s been so wrong before, and sometimes is now, and probably will be again.

I think music is great at posing a question. It doesn’t always have to give the answer, but it can open the dialogue.

We’re always going for it and trying to raise the bar and achieve more and more and just be as creative as we can.

I believe in education, but I think the balance has to be right between theory and practical experience. I think from secondary school onwards it should be more about preparing you for life and work in the real world.

You may think it’s weird working with a cartoon band but there are a lot of characters in grime, especially since the early days.

I think great art poses questions and doesn’t necessarily give answers and solutions – that’s not what I’m trying to do.

I would go to college and people would know me from the rave they went to at the weekend. So I would get a bit of respect. But I would always go to class and do my work. My mother made sure of that.

You know, I was going to be a footballer at one stage, but… nah.

Grime, in particular, is not really about pirate radio and local raves on top of pubs anymore. There are things I miss about those times but as an up-and-coming MC, back then, I would have loved to have had SoundCloud and YouTube and all these platforms to promote my music.

I like table-tennis and I’m good at it.

Sometimes I feel like distance helps observation.

I would continue to try to make songs how I did at the start. Wherever that be, like in your bedroom or coming up with ideas on the bus, as you grow that’s gonna change. Sometimes it can get forced.

In most of my music it’s firsthand experience, and some of the same rules apply in TV. The difference in music is the control, whereas doing this, it’s someone else’s words that you can play in your own way.

My first bars were about wrestling! That was basically all I knew back then.

I can clearly hear a lot of grime influence on Timbaland’s stuff, on some of Drake’s flows.

You fight for your character in the script. It’s part of our job to evolve them, show all sides of them.

I’m always working out how people perceive me, and that’s a hard thing to navigate sometimes.

I don’t think groundbreaking shows such as ‘Top Boy’ are made every day.

If I looked back on 2019, in ten years’ time, and I’d only made club tune after club tune, what’s the purpose?

American racism seems to be a lot more in the open. The U.K. is different but it obviously still exists.

I would love young girls to look up and see my string section or my brass section or the steel band and be like, ‘Wow! I never thought I could do that, that’s wicked! I want to be up there doing that.’

My favourite lessons in college were when we would have a professional teach us, or when we went out of the classroom for the day. You take in so much more when someone who’s been there and done it is telling you.

I love the building and the history. I understand not many people like me have played there. But the aim is not to conform to that building. It’s to bring the Albert Hall into my world.

See, I’m not a very open person, face-to-face. I’m no good at sharing my feelings with others, good or bad. I kind of close up. Music is the only time I can open up and actually say things.

Jermaine Defoe was from my area. Rio Ferdinand used to come into my barbershop.

Drake can do that well, he can have the hottest tune every summer for the next 20 years, and that’s how he does his things. But naaaaah, I might go away for three years, you know what I mean?