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By the time I was a teenager, when I went outside the house, it was about hip-hop all the time. Nothing but hip-hop, block parties.

When I was growing up, hip-hop was still a pretty specialised thing.

I feel like I changed hip-hop.

My mother's records were formative for me, but when I became a teenager, I wanted to find songs that she wasn't hip to. She was so hip, though, that I had to go outside rock n' roll - so for about 10 years, I only listened to hip-hop, house and techno.

I got into hip hop from my uncle; he was always playing us Kool G Rap and Big Daddy Kane. He was a bad boy, and my mum was not really happy that I was hanging out with him.

I'm a big hip-hop fan since being a kid. It was the first music that spoke to me and made me feel like, 'Yeah.'

My dad was an early hip-hop fan.

As a brother and sister, our tastes were pretty different growing up. He liked a lot of early hip hop. My dad didn't understand it and would try to talk him out of it.

I always say, 'Hip-hop takes me everywhere.' It's crazy when I step onstage, and people might not speak much English, but they know every word to your songs. It's kind of freaky, but it's really cool.