Worldpop: What don't you want us to ask?

TQ: People keep askin' who is my girlfriend - that really annoys me. So don't ask that one.'

Worldpop: Righto. Well, you've come over to Britain to plug your single. Do you like it here?

TQ: I try to get out as much as I can, but it ain't easy man! The schedule is really packed from the time I get off the plane to the time I get to the next city. I need some time to chill out and do my own thing, but as far as everything else I like the UK period. The one thing I can't get used to is the weather! But in a lot of ways it feels a lot like America. With the exception that you drive on the wrong side.

Worldpop: No, we're on the right side.

TQ: Yeah, right! Ha ha!

Worldpop: Have you seen Dane Lev while you've been over here?

TQ: I saw him at cd:uk but I haven't seen him since the group split up. It's wild, but it's hard keeping a group together, it ain't easy. I love being a solo artist. He was telling me about his single - I haven't heard it yet, I didn't even know it was coming out. I'm not really into the UK garage scene that much but I've been to a couple of the clubs where they were playing it and the people were going (throws arms around) WILD over it!

Worldpop: It doesn't seem very long since your last album came out. Have you rushed this one?

TQ: No, it just happened pretty quick. I'm writing songs all the time, and we just wanted to try and keep it as fresh and poppin' as possible, you know what I'm sayin'?

Worldpop: How's the subject matter moved on in that short time? The character in your first album must have realised most of his frustrated ambitions in the second one …

TQ: If I have to say that anything's different then it'd have to be the maturity level. I'm not necessarily as angry as I was on the first album. My music reflects what I'm doing in my life, and now I'm like, my dreams is coming true, I'm flying around the world. So you're not necessarily going to get a Bye Bye Baby this time around.

Worldpop: But the kind of subject matter - drive-by shootings like in Bye Bye Baby - is still current for a lot of people. Is your music still talking to the people who identified with your first album?

TQ: Definitely. You've got to, that's what I am and young black America is the demographic I'm in myself, I have to speak to them still. For me to tell my story is basically for any one of us to tell our story.

Worldpop: Your first hit here was Westside - did you know that used to be Westlife's name?

TQ: Yeah, yeah, that's funny. They had to change it, didn't they? I remember that, we was on the charts at the same time. I haven't actually met them but I passed them at some show we was doing the other day, I can't think which one. That's cool, though.

Worldpop: We were quite surprised when you turned up on the Another Level collaboration last year. Any more lined up?

TQ: I work with a lot of people. And that Another Level song, that's a song I wrote when I was 16, and it just kind of resurfaced. So you never really know who's going to take the next song. I did two songs on the LFO album, and that was good. I'm working on Whitney Houston's greatest hits record at the moment. I've met her a couple of times, she's cool. I hear she's a perfectionist, but that's not a bad thing.

Worldpop: And acting yourself? You've done it in your videos already, after all.

TQ: Yeah, and I've always had to act for somebody. Mum, police, teachers, and I'm always getting scripts but for me it's got to be the right role, man! My ideal role would just be something off the wall - I don't necessarily want to be the bank robber, or the obvious role. I'd rather they costumed me up, turned me into an old man or something! Put together some kind of accent or something like that!

Worldpop: What do you make of the current success of rap and hip hop in the UK charts? Dre can get to Number Five without doing any promotion at all.

TQ: People just seem to be loving the art form, man. It reminds me of when hip hop was a baby in the States with Run DMC and the Fat Boys and LL Cool J and when that was first coming on the scene people just wanted to be down because they loved it, you know? I feel like the love for hip hop here and the love for soul is based on the music. That's why you see people like Dre with no promotions, no marketing, and they have a hit.

Worldpop: It's strange, though, because a lot of the music - including yours - is written about specifically black, urban, American situations, and you'd think most of the people who buy it in the UK wouldn't be able to associate with that.

TQ: And I don't know if many other musical forms have that kind of far reach to people. It's the way people can recognise a struggling situation - whoever you are. It's, like, everyone has struggle. When someone else is going through something it might be different from your own experience but you can still sympathise because it's a hardship.

Worldpop: Are you tempted by any more songs on soundtracks?

TQ: Yeah, I mean I did like 30 songs for this album, so I've just got like finished songs waiting to get out, y'know? So there'll be a lot of songs coming through in the next few months.

Worldpop: And why are you clutching daffodils today?

TQ: It's my fans, man! I love them! They was like holding them through a gate at me so I just grabbed them from them and people just give me so much stuff it's all round my house, right. I have a big whole corner which is just dedicated to all the big stuffed animals and the letters and flowers. And I go away, come back, and there's like dead flowers everywhere, heh heh!