It is your business when the wall next door catches fire.
Where I grew up - I grew up on the north side of Akron, lived in the projects. So those scared and lonely nights - that's every night. You hear a lot of police sirens, you hear a lot of gunfire. Things that you don't want your kids to hear growing up.
It does not do to leave a live dragon out of your calculations, if you live near him.
Anybody who's lived in the ghetto knows that you don't move during the daytime. Here's why: You don't want anyone to know you're leaving, and you don't want anyone knowing where you're going.
I came from a real tough neighborhood. Once a guy pulled a knife on me. I knew he wasn't a professional, the knife had butter on it.
My parents were very protective of me. Hockley had some crime, so my mum didn't want me out there, and my dad was the same. I would have to be in at a certain time, as there was a lot of violence surrounding our area.
It was dangerous to hit the wrong kid in my neighborhood, because a lot of the guys I played with had fathers in the Mafia.
I grew up in somewhat of a war zone in West Philadelphia in 1985, '86. It wasn't as extreme as someone coming in the classroom and just unloading on a class, but I knew to take the scenic route to go to the grocery store to avoid certain elements.
We moved to Baltimore, Maryland, in 1979, when I was five. The funny thing is that, even though Baltimore had one of the top murder rates in the country in those days, I grew up hearing about how dangerous New York was.
