As an adolescence, we usually dream about the direction we would like our life to go, within our career paths, what was your dream during this time?

• “See, I always just wanted to be an activist. I guess that comes from my parents being the people they are, but I always wanted to be active and spread knowledge and make sure everyone in my immediate circle goes in their circle and just learn, I wanna learn and I wanna spread that.”

Can you talk to me about specific instances that influenced you to diverge from the route that you were on? How did these instances lead you to your current situation?

• “See, I really love writing and I grew up in a household where my dad was a professor. My mom was an educator as well. They always pushed me to read, but it wasn’t just that, that made me really enjoy writing and English. Just all the aspects you can do with writing. My brothers grew up in the hip-hop culture, I always got to hear amazing linguists. one of my brothers, when he was young, had a crew. They weren’t just a normal crew, they actually had talent. Two of them were signed at 14 to major labels. Just growing up in those environments, I had a greater appreciation for what you can do with language and writing and how if people don’t necessarily like one form there are multifaceted outlets for it. When I was around 16 my dad was really good friends with the great African American writer Walter D. Meyers. He unbeknownst to me  had me proofread a transcript, reading that and…first of all, my dad trusted me to do that and his friend trusted me, award-winning Coretta Scott King award-winning writer for young adults..made my day. I can honestly do this, I can write. Picking choices in college, I went with English. Leading up to that point I was raised for it and directed towards it…anything involving writing was my calling. I felt like I could share more of the different outlets of me if I can be a dope writer. I can put it in different places.”

What is your definition of the grey area? Would you say you are in it currently?

• I think the grey area is when, to me, that point when you realize the narrative you were fed about growing up as a human within American society. When you finally reach that apex or point and you realize its not real. When you realize there is no set definition, you were born American so this is what you have done, this and this and these are the orders, game of life. You supposed to hit on diff pegs, its really a situation where you finally reach a point you have to write your own story and it’s  a grey area because there is no formula for it. In society, you have been force-fed so many narratives of peoples lives that are cartoons and movies through the representation of media that you start believing you have a narrative. But when you finally realize you don’t have a narrative to me that when you are like 18, you graduate high school and all these processes were like a conveyor belt to push you to this point to get your diploma are no longer there so now you gotta self-push. That kinda tells people who they are, that’s where the grey area is because now you realize that you don’t really know who you are. There aren’t many hands around trying to pull you up and push you to go class, or school or push to go in to work on time even if you don’t like it, you gotta keep going. Not only that but to push you, say you have a job but that’s not what you wanna do but you gotta go to a job every day to sustain your life. Those are the grey areas, but you don’t know who you are because for the most part before that, people are taking care of you. I think everyone’s grey area is relative, I think some people already been through their grey area. So that my def of it, it’s that point where you have to self-define.

Why did you decide to go to college?

• “I just grew up in a college environment. So it wasn’t much of a decision as it was a “this is what I do next”. But I also did want to expand more on certain aspects, of knowledge and socially what everyone else is thinking. But ironically I didn’t go to college straight out of high school. I just bullshitted around, I went to community college a little bit but didn’t really pay any attention to that. But I was not in a good environment. So, I guess the decision to go college was really…it started after I read ‘The Alchemist’ actually. I realized more you have to push things into motion than just waiting for things to happen. So yea, I went back into the idea, college was the logical next step for what I want to do. It’s what made me wanna go back.”