Hot on the heels of his latest release untitled unmastered, Kendrick Lamar landed in Manchester last weekend for a secret gig and event at the city’s Granada Studios to celebrate the Reebok Classic Leather sneaker – whom the rapper has collaborated with since the end of 2014. Before the show, we had the chance to catch up with him to talk about his hopes, dreams and why it’s a 10-year-old kid from Compton that’s inspiring him the most right now.

ON THE LINK BETWEEN FASHION AND MUSIC

“When you talk about music it comes from the streets and music industries they make up what’s cool – and what’s cool is always the fashion. When you talk about rappers, they come from these urban communities and they make up what we should be doing and what we like to do – that’s always been hand-to-hand. You get some kids from New York knowing the shoes, and they’re rocking shoes without any shoe strings anymore, they make the design, that’s birth of hip-hop, that’s fashion right there.”

ON HIS HOPE FOR FUTURE GENERATIONS

“Just to continue the idea of creativity, the freedom of creativity and expressing yourself – that’s what’s style and music all about. Doing something that other people can feel if they can’t express themselves. A lot of people turn to drugs and things like that, but the most part you have creative people that express themselves through art. Kids look up to that and so if I can just continue that idea in what I do then it's happy, that’s on a greater scale but for the most part that’s the initial idea.”

ON THE IMPORTANCE OF STAYING POSITIVE

“(It’s) Very important, especially when you create. When I’m in the studio I can’t really have that energy in there, I can’t create, I’ve gotta get out of the studio. So it’s the same with people making shoes, or creating anything, you always want to have people that have open minds and (are) not so boxed into what they think they know or they were told. So you need to have an open mind when you create anything – that positive energy goes a long way – and to be open-minded to other people’s opinions and collaborate.”

ON WHAT DRIVES HIM

“I think the drive is pure curiosity. Most people – I want to say most people – the biggest connection for me and the people that listen to my music is you don’t get the idea that I know everything. You kind of get the idea, or at least that I want to put out there, the idea that I’m really just sharing with you my knowledge and my wisdom, but at the same time, overall, I’m just asking questions myself. That purpose right there and that curiosity on where will I be in the next ten years or what will I learn by travelling to Manchester is a purpose right there and wondering what’s next to come. All listeners are wondering what’s next to come, so, I think the main purpose is us finding out together and that keep me driving all day, every day.”

“You need to have an open mind when you create anything – that positive energy goes a long way” – Kendrick Lamar

ON WHO INSPIRES HIM

“I think I can’t give it to one particular person, but recently there was this little kid in my city by the name of Kenny. He’s a really dope little kid with a lot of energy but the idea of him was very inspiring. He’s ten years old and you can see the freedom that he has and as adults we always want to go back to that, someway, somehow, throughout the day, an hour of the day or even ten seconds. So, he’s the latest inspiration to my catalogue of inspirational people – a little kid called Kenny.”

ON HIS STYLE ICONS

“First of all, in present time today, you have to go with Pharrell and you have to go with Kanye – you can't run from that. Pharrell being the godfather, Kanye being the extension of that in present time, today and that’s my generation. These guys are like ten or 12 years older than I am. These are the people we were looking at when we were coming through, killing the game, they had the pink polos and backpacks. Pharrell came with his crazy sense of style, and they just took that extension and now they’re doing bigger things with it, you know, as they grew as artists.”

ON SOCIAL MEDIA

“It’s not bad to be outspoken, I just have my own outlets and avenues (on) how I wanna do things. Kanye is a very outspoken person, that’s the very beautiful thing about him. We all love to respect, and everybody has their own perspectives on it. So, me on social media I’m not really good at it [laughs], so I tend to use my own avenues to get my own point across.”