I have created a custom UICollectionViewCell in Interface Builder, binded views on it to the class, and then when I want to use and set a string to the label on the string,
Looks like there's two ways to register and I was using the wrong one the first. I have a custom xib view so registered with the second option, and we have data!
1:
collectionView?.register(YourItemClassName.self, forCellWithReuseIdentifier: "yourIdentifier")
2:
collectionView?.register(UINib(nibName: "YourItemClassName", bundle: nil), forCellWithReuseIdentifier: "yourIdentifier")