me against the world album talkin about new york

You're thinking, well, my mother made mistakes. And you start to see everything through the lens of individual responsibility. And then as someone who avoided getting in trouble with the police, I saw that I was able to do that. You're just seeing what's happening in your life. Well, you know, what's interesting is sometimes, particularly when you're younger, you don't see the macro view of things. And so I'm grateful for those people in my life. And so they took particular care to, you know, invest their time and energy into making sure I didn't slip through the cracks. I was a straight-A student and usually near the top of my class, and a lot of people wanted to make sure that that potential wasn't wasted. And part of it, I think people saw a lot of potential in me. And our village really rallied around us, my church, my extended family, even folks who worked at the public schools that I went to, like counselors and teachers, people just all pitched in and helped us. But it does take a village especially when one of the parents is missing and you need that extra support. And, you know - Hillary wrote that book, 'It Takes a Village.' And that's, you know, based on a, I think an African proverb. And then we had lots of relatives that lived nearby. So there's five of us in the house, my dad and four kids. It was my dad and me and my three siblings. Well it's hard you know but we had each other. But it started with me singing and playing in church as a kid. All those things started happening when I was a little bit older, but I was in college and and then in my early twenties when I started to figure out my sound and how I wanted to sound if I came out with a record, and that all started happening over those years. But eventually it meant that I started really working on my own original material and started developing what an album from me would sound like. And when I was a kid, that meant, you know, I wanted to be on Star Search. I loved coming up with a performance and coming up with songs eventually that I started writing when I was a little bit older as a kid, but I loved all of that and I wanted to do it for a living.

I loved the connection I felt with people. And either way, I enjoyed being on stage.

I would do it at recitals for my piano teacher.

Me against the world album talkin about new york