Alan King, a comedian I adored, was considered society, and I was considered the Jewish kid from the neighborhood.
I come from Lambeth, Brixton.
I think about never losing my voice, never giving in, never selling out, always keeping black, always sticking to the street. Staying neighborhood and not Hollywood.
To see old faces, to give back to the kids and let them know I come from these same schools and streets, and they can make it out, too, that's my biggest message to them.
What I want to do right now is give hip hop back to the hood. Before it was a neighborhood thing where it belonged to the hood and the rappers were reporting and there were rules and parameters. Now it seems like the artist's game.
I'm a Queens boy at the end of the day.
South Central is just who I am. Even though I have a nice house, nice family, the rest of my generation is still in South Central L.A. My cousins, my brothers, my sisters, they don't wanna move out.
The East Village is where I cut my teeth as a kid. I ran around here on a skateboard.
You know, I still live in my neighborhood. I live in Brooklyn and the same neighborhood, so I don't really get star treatment like that. I'm still Vanessa from the neighborhood.
I'm not a dishwasher anymore. But I'm still from Sangamon Street.
