The country that I was coming from, the island I was in, hadn't been written about, really. So I thought that I virtually had it all to myself, including the language that was spoken there, which was a French Creole, and a landscape that is not recorded, really, and the people.

I have no curiosity. I'm an island boy.

There's always a need at a critical time for poetry.

What is taught in schools generally in the West Indies is that if something is your thing, it's better than anybody else's because it's yours. It's extremely provincial and also damaging. You prevent people from learning things. The biggest absurdity would be, 'Don't read Shakespeare because he was white.'

Bad people are, from the point of view of art, fascinating studies. They represent colour, variety and strangeness. Good people exasperate one's reason; bad people stir one's imagination.

What I would say to filmmakers, if I may be so bold or so arrogant, is to draw inspiration from other filmmakers, but go to the place in your own gut where everything is nothing. That's a very Zen thing to say, but that place of nothing is where real creativity comes out of.

I left Starbucks in 2015. When I was younger, I remember looking at Justin Bieber and wishing I had all these fans, but you know what? Everyone has their path, everyone's path is different, and this is where mine's going. I just didn't want to work at Starbucks. I wanted to be writing music all the time.

It'll work, if God, wind, leads, ice, snow, and all the hells of this damned frozen land are willing.