It's all economic. Soda is easier to sell than orange juice because its costs less. Water, some coloring, some fizz, and this can, and we can sell this to you over and over and over again. And that's what rap is.

So the only way I could stave off any of these assaults was to become a gang banger, and to excel, so I could quell the behavior. If I excelled, then I could call the shots. So I became a community leader from inside.

It's all economic. Soda is easier to sell than orange juice because its costs less. Water, some coloring, some fizz, and this can, and we can sell this to you over and over and over again. And that's what rap is.

I thought about ancient times when we didn't have electric light. People were slaves to the ebb and the flow of the light cycle. Good Morning and Good Night represents one light cycle.

Administrators tend to lump Asians in Chicago into one group, not understanding that these kids would be fighting each other, the Cambodians and the Vietnamese. We started a thing called cultural gift sharing, where everyone comes and says what his culture is, so the teachers and the administrators could understand they are different.

I see myself as the oldest griot tradition of speaking to truth out here. There's a dark side that people don't even know is there.

The normal kid can differentiate between various aspects of life, but a kid with dyslexia has to connect all those dots, and they have to link it like a chain. Teachers can't incorporate that. They don't have time; it's not their fault. They don't have the resources to give personal attention to each kid in the classroom.