I figure if you have one person that loves you, that's enough, growing up. You just need one person in your corner.

I have always been very intrigued by the outside of buildings. I can just walk down the street and be content with watching facades. I don't have to go inside.

The narrative oftentimes is that everything that comes out of the hood is 'real,' and so I thought, 'I'll base it on the absurd, the not real. I'll twist the idea of real on its head and see if I can get away with it. I'll make paintings that come not from a place but through an abstract gaze.'

The police pull up in back of my car and run my plates - they don't see you as you are; they see you through a racialized negative gaze. I think the best thing is not to internalize it too much, or it'll make you crazy because you know it's going to happen again.

The one thing that I would say that defines me is I love to learn. I get excited about new things. I buy more books than I read or finish.

Mum grew up in Wythenshawe, one of 12. My mum didn't really go to school and didn't see the need for education, she got bullied so she excluded herself.

In 1998 I invested in the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship at Strathclyde Uni and subsequently put more capital into enterprise education to try and help change the culture.

But I like going to church. If you've been brought up in the Church of England, it feels like visiting an elderly relative. And I think it's important that part of the kids' education is knowing about the Bible.