Idris Elba: It came about by accident to be honest. The idea to put a together a animation artist was always there cos I loved what the Gorrilaz done, I loved that whole look and idea. The music came first, but I wasn’t sure with what to do with the music then the animation came after it just fit right. The Me Innit came together because it was a funny stupid name, when I was growing up we used to say it all the time, it was answer for everything and we say innit a lot in London and because I’m over hear so much I wanted something to sound real London, real English

Idris Elba: Yeah in all honesty I feel the video has a lot of edge to it, it definitely borders on the explicit to the misogynistic, I think the video represents what people think and wanna think and goes as cutting edge as it can, we’ve come up with a lot of road blocks in terms of people saying we can’t put it on there, but with a English song and a English artists and a label like mine I should try and push the envelope, but saying that, with the character Mr Me Innit the whole character isn’t all sexual he’s not just gonna be all about sex, if I want a song with a message I’m definitely gonna try and push the envelope as far as I can.

Pyroradio.com: I can definitely relate to what you’re talking about in the song as can most guys out there. So who would be your top 5 females in the music and movie business?

Idris Elba: BOY, it spans from sexy women to powerful women, to me the most powerful and respected is Oprah Winfrey I’ve got a lot of love for her, sexy wise there’s across between Tyra Banks, I can’t even think (laughs) , you know Keri Washington the actress, Serena Williams does it for me the body (laughs), Beyonce obviously does it for me and the last one I’ll have to pick a white girl erm Sienna Miller she’s kinda hot.

Pyroradio.com: So what inspired you to set up your label, I know you’ve been doing your acting thing for a bit know how did you get into the music side of things with Hevlar Records?

Idris Elba: The music started out with me djing, I always kept a studio in my house, a couple turn tables and a sample machine, and living over here in the states you can easily get disconnected so I kept up with the djing during acting and still do and then it just came natural I ended up with working with other dj’s and got together with a crew in New York and started to mc with them and started to go studio with them and we put together a couple mixtapes for magazines and then I became naturally drawn to it, I never had no desire to get a record deal or anything like that, I never had a desire for that, if I was gonna do it I’d put it out myself because it’s more of a hobby, then in the last two years I thought I’d do this properly, I’m in a fortunate position were I can straddle between the UK and US and honestly my ultimate goal is to service music in the UK to the US. There’s a big misconnection between the real scene in London with the new shit coming out to the tastemakers in America and I don’t understand why.

Idris Elba: Na we haven’t done music together I’ve done a track with Baby Blue though that I’m gonna put out, that’s a Me Innit track. With Sway he was getting nominated for UK artist of the year at the BET Awards and I was presenting at the same awards so we just linked up, I love Sway man he’s a good cat and a hard hard worker, his work ethics like the Americans and he deserves to go all the way

Idris Elba: To tell you the truth with the Jay project obviously I was close to the project through the film and word came back to me that Jay was gonna do an album called American Gangster, that wasn’t exactly a soundtrack but it was co-signed by the film so I have a management company and I manage a couple of producers and because of my character in The Wire being respected and liked so much I thought I had some responsibility because I didn’t play that character anymore to say something about it so I sat down with Chris Flame my producer and at first I was gonna write a verse but I thought that’s not the way to approach Jay Z so I thought I’d write something that’s more of a statement so we recorded it, produced it and sent it to Lenny S who has worked with Jay for a long time so when Lenny got it he was like YOOO ( laughs). At the time Jay was just working with JD in a three day session so at the time he wasn’t listening to nothing but once we sent it to Lenny he sent it to Ta Ta and Ta Ta was like Jay you gotta listen to this, this is what they told me and Jay listened to it and was like who the fuck is this (laughs) and he was like Idris and Jay was like who, then he said Idris Elba Stringer Bell from The Wire and apparently he fell of his chair and then he played it four times over and dragged everyone to listen to it, his whole staff and then he said he wanted to make it the intro and everyone was like wicked idea, so when my me and my team heard we were like wow. I feel like if you throw something out there in the universe you never know what you may get back you know.

Idris Elba: Yeah definitely I want to smash out as many sides of who I am, acting is definitely an extension of your personality, you definitely have to have your idiosyncrasies when you learn your lines but you have to bring your own personality to the character. Honestly Matthew in the last five years I’ve realized I’ve got so many different personality’s I think I’ve got a disorder in my head (laughs), it’s hard to squeeze all these personality’s into one character so with every role I get a chance to show something different so I’ve definitely been lucky to not just play one stereotype character to pay the bills.

Idris Elba: Yeah continuously, people want to see you play the same thing, just like if you’re a musician if you put out a banging hip hop album then next you go on a rock tip your probably gonna lose your audience but if you show your officially diverse in everyway I think people will go with you.

Idris Elba: Yeah man that’s coming out this year, Guy stepped into a lane he’s really comfortable in and he’s gone back to that. It’s a crime caper, very London, very stylised type of film making I was proud to be a part of and I’m looking forward to it.

Idris Elba: I didn’t’t actually work with Russell you know. Denzel’s intense, definitely intense. I haven’t really said this to anyone before but with Denzel when your working with someone at that level he’s at you just bring you’re A game, you’ll fall on your face if your nervous, you have to be a hundred percent and with Denzel he didn’t show up to the set, his character showed up to the set, you didn’t get any more than that, so whatever his character was feeling about my character that’s what you got, so if you shake his hand and his character didn’t like yours he’s not really shaking your hand, there’s no conversation or friendly banter because his character and my character had proper beef. I remember filming one of the scenes I said hello to Denzel and he kinda dissed me and later I realized he was in character but it pissed me off, I felt too myself fuck him then and that came across in the film.

Idris Elba: (Laughs) I got him back believe me (laughs). I like Denzel as an actor I’d love to do a film with him for a good six months and carve out some real shit and delve into the characters were playing and merk it you know.

Idris Elba: More of the same dude, on my business side of things I’m pushing it as far as I can with the music, the label and the management thing and especially with the Mr Me Innit people are buying into it already which is good, it’s a interesting concept. And I’ve also got two movies coming out I done a film with Jada Pinkett where she’s directing it that’s coming out this year, I’ve also got a film called Prom Night which is a big Horror movie and I actually played the Mr Me Innit track to the people and there gonna cut a music video for the movie which will be a good look. Just more of the same honestly

Idris Elba: Boy big shout out to East London, Forest Gate my old manor, big up Quincy the comedian big up my boy Boogie that’s my team man, I’ve got too big up Vanessa, Chantelle, I love coming back home and with the music and the films I wanna celebrate it back home in London and spread it. And also this year I’m directing my first music video for Wu Tang for there single with Erykah Badu called ‘My Heart Gently Weeps’ I’m really excited about that.

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