Artists can have greater access to reality; they can see patterns and details and connections that other people, distracted by the blur of life, might miss. Just sharing that truth can be a very powerful thing.

Far from a Harvard student, just had the balls to do it

I never ask for nothin' I don't demand of myself. Honesty, loyalty, friends and then wealth

It was a very intense and stressful situation. There was playing in the Johnny-pump (an opened fire hydrant) and the ice-cream man coming around and all of these games that we'd play, and suddenly it would turn just violent and there would be shootings at 12 in the afternoon on any given day.

I would run into the corner store, the bodega, and just grab a paper bag or buy juice - anything just to get a paper bag. And I'd write the words on the paper bag and stuff these ideas in my pocket until I got back. Then I would transfer them into the notebook.

No one came to our neighborhoods with stand-up jobs and showed us there's a different way. Maybe, had I seen different role models, maybe I'd've turned on to that.