So look, I have to ask you about this hat you're wearing? Well, this hat is actually really about ganja. [Perry takes off his hat and starts pulling rolling papers out of a compartment.] I used to be actually addicted to ganja. Until I reach to a time that I don't think I did need ganja already. Because if I smoke ganja anymore I get too smart.

Ganja makes you too smart? Yes, cause I smoke too much. So it was so much that I get crazy. Too much fire. [Laughs] Too much weed, so I get crazy. If you love God you would never destroy your lungs.

So it's not good to smoke anything? Nah. When you don't know, it's alright. But when you know, you know cigarette is hurting your lungs and you put your lungs to sacrifice. That mean you nail your lungs on a cross. You know it's wrong, but because it's in fashion, and you want to follow fashion, you put yourself on a cross.

When did you realize you wanted to stop smoking? Me decide to find out if it was me singing or the ganja singing. And the scribe says, if it was the ganja singing, you're gonna stop sing. It's better when me sing. If the ganja can sing, the ganja gonna take you to a height that you can't come back. And the ganja love to mix with cigarette, and me get to hate cigarette. Me was addicted to cigarettes and me start to hate it, when me discover what it is.

So tonight, onstage, that was you singing? Yeah. No cigarette, no ganja. Fully in control. I was out of control because I was following fashion, thinking it was the ganja making the people sing. So we smoke too, and get high. And then I discover that my voice was different. Thinking anybody can smoke a spliff and start to sing.

You made many amazing and successful records during the time you were in Jamaica. You were smoking then right? Yeah. I was smoking those time. But the thing is when I do what I do, I go back and listen to it and say… "If there's a certain amount of people given to I, then I only want to teach them what is real." Because if I don't teach them what is real, when it end all up, they are not guilty. Only you are guilty for teaching them something that is not real. You can follow people do things. But there is people that you create. They follow you, you are responsible for them. You are their teacher. Because of what you teach, they follow what you teach, and live by what you teach. So anything happen to them is you are guilty.

So what's the solution to that? Choose only what is good for you, and give it to the people who believe in you. So if you were smoking ganja and making records, and other people grow a part of this smoke thing that you were smoking, like drugs. And all those people who get drugsy, then you're guilty, not them.

Speaking of influence, you've had major influence in the world of reggae as one of the pioneers of the genre. How have you seen it change over the years? Well, the whole thing about it… For me to say "reggae" me just say that to make the people who living off it live. Right? But the music itself is a spiritual organization that I put together. And because of the other people in Jamaica there wasn't a name for it. It was like a weapon, a revolution weapon to correct or to make connection with the American funky. Like, to fight against the funky. So it did not have a name and they wanted to know what they should call it. So they want to say, "Let's call it reggae." But it name revolution music. Redemption music. Revolution music. But because of the people who are suffering like sufferers and they are rebels. "Streggae" the sufferer mean, so me join it as a fun.

When you listen to drum & bass, jungle, and dubstep today, do you hear reggae's influence? It have influence actually over all music. Is a rebel. And the people together… it's a sufferer's music. And music to let you have freedom, set you free, communication, community, people, sufferer's peoples, rebels and devils and whatsoever it is love it. And that's why it has so much strength and so much power.

We're here in the UK, so I have to ask you about Bob Marley's "Punky Reggae Party," because you recorded that here. How did that song come about? Well. like I was saying, there was a little mix-up of what goes on our type of music. The pop music was so much… Everywhere. Pop. And these sufferers wanted something different for themself. Punks are different people. Punks didn't have any locks. Punks like to put hair colors, and I like hair colors too. So I was liking what the punks do. So we decided to mix with punk ideas, and move away from the funk—the funk is American. So we gonna make a "Funky Reggae Party." We put the punk and the reggae together. We were throwing stone at the funk music. Decide to upset the funk music. So we put the punk and the reggae together and call it "Punky Reggae Party." It's an organization. Me like, like for instance, the government don't like ganja and the politician hate ganja. So anything the politician and the government hate, I love it.

Because that's the rebel in you?

[Nods head.]