I wrote while listening to Caribou, Kamasi Washington, Frank Ocean, Mitski. Towards the end, a lot of Talk Talk.

During the ’80s, when I was in college, on the American side, it was Robert DeNiro in Taxi Driver, Robert Duvall and Martin Sheen in Apocalypse Now, Christopher Walken, John Savage, John Cazale, etc. All of those guys – I was blown away by the emotional impact and sincerity of their performances. And then of course, in the UK, I was going to a lot of theater at the time and watching great on stage performances from people like Jonathan Price, Albert Finney, Anthony Hopkins – all of whom really influenced me as well.

Charles Dickens. Jane Austen. And then, when I finally learned to read her, Virginia Woolf. Shoot for the top, always. You know you’ll never make it, but what’s the fun if you don’t shoot for the top?

For me, since when I was a child, all writers have been collective. They are searching meanings in life. Sometimes they are lost and sometimes they are determined and all their efforts and all their strengths have been my inspiration. So it’s very difficult for me to pick some names of the inspiration. It’s very difficult for me.

So I’m listening, I’m watching, and I’m also reading while I’m making.

It’s investigative curiosity at the beginning, this phase of questioning and garnering. And at the end it’s instinctual. It’s a sweet spot. There have been times where I’ve gone out and presented something thinking that it’s done and then brought it back. I’ve gotten audience reactions, brought it back, turned it up a little bit, and then it was done. Sometimes my finishing process requires me to see it with a large group of people.

You can become a different person. That’s actually my favorite thing about Malcolm X is that he transformed himself multiple times over. He became a different person and always for the better. He kept leveling up.

I work on other things. There's usually more than one project brewing. I also write. I also listen to talks; I love listening to black feminist thinkers or listening to people read their poetry. What I try to do is fill my arsenal. I'll put this shit down or I'll pick something else up. Like some days, I just take whole days where I "play," and that's where I'll only do production stuff.

I’m calling people like Simone Leigh, Cauleen Smith—people who have sold things—asking, “What does this look like? What is this process?”

It’s really a kind of roadmap or a record. It’s breadcrumbs in the forest. It’s like the hieroglyphic on the wall. It’s me attempting to code some sort of roadmap that helps us think and act our way out of these conditions.