Quotes from Lukas Forchhammer

I've always wanted to release records in America. That's where I believe the music belongs, and the style and the eclectic musical mix that we put together kind of belongs here.

What hit me in the gut about hip-hop was that someone else grew up tough enough to be angry at the entire system.

I grew up with nothing, and I know that I don't need anything to be happy. We were wearing second-hand clothing and eating leftovers, and I was so happy. Five-star hotels and private pick-ups hasn't changed that.

Graham was my father's second name, so I took Graham because Lukas Graham sounded cool.

It's very satisfying when you see your song at the top of the charts.

I really like singing. I believe that if I wasn't a good singer, I would have been tossed out of school.

'7 Years' is, you could say, a song that eats its own children. That we need to get past the song and get to the person and get to the record and get to the music so we can keep releasing.

Our goals, our dreams and ambitions have always been towards performing live music across the globe, and so when we were told we were performing at The Billboard Awards or being nominated for a VMA, they're like extra bonuses.

When you get frisked by the police at the age of 10, and they empty your schoolbag out in the street and kick your books around and calling you names because of where you live, you just get an anger towards everyone who is outside of your neighborhood.

I never want to lose sight of my roots... A lot of artists want the riches and the fame. I want to tell stories you can put into the context of your life.

'7 Years' seems to have attracted a lot of age groups - people seem to see their own lives in the song, and it's great to see so many people reacting in that way to it.

I just thought it would be awesome to become a lawyer, especially being from a neighborhood seeing the police rough up so many people unnecessarily, people who haven't done nothing. Growing up with kids from dysfunctional families and stuff, I just felt that some kind of difference could be done. And now I'm getting to do it with music instead.

I don't play any instruments. I don't produce. I don't know which keys or chords I am using, so, in essence, I need the band and the production team - otherwise, I am just some guy with a hat and a song.

I find it a very, very powerful thing to be yourself and not to try and be something else and to use that as your biggest shield and your biggest attack in the world - to just be you.

We mix a lot of genres - soul, pop, jazz - but we most agree on hip-hop.

That's why I can't listen to a whole record of Adele's. She has the most amazing voice, but people must have convinced her they just want to hear love songs.

A part of me understands why a mother is equally proud of all her children, but that little boy inside me just wants my mom to say, out loud but even just to me, 'I'm a little bit prouder of you.'

I don't like the whole 'slander, slander' conversation that most political debates are these days. So I tend to keep my political standpoint not to myself, but just relatively private.

The neighborhood where I live has little canals, and there are a lot of houseboats there.

I wish we could not ever get recognised on the streets, do no selfies, and still perform music all over the world. Unfortunately I don't think that's going to be the case, but I'm doing my best to just keep my feet on the ground and my eyes on the prize.

We're like, 'Woah, are we even in that league where we get nominated for a VMA?' And yet our name is right down there among the other nominees. It's very, very strange coming from a country of five and a half million people.

Christiania has a lot of strong, nuclear families. It gave us a sense of empowerment and belonging and richness. We had so much love; we were never in doubt that we were wanted in this world.

My biggest influence is rap. It spoke to me, probably because of my upbringing in Christiania. You listen to 'The Chronic' and you can hear that anger and frustration.

I get emotionally spent answering questions about my dead father and my criminal friends and my upbringing in a hippie environment in a marginalized community.