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I've lived all over the world, but Harlem is very special to me, and when I decided to open a restaurant near my home, I didn't want it to be business as usual.

I'm sort of obsessed with Harlem. Just its history. My father did the music for a play called 'The Huey P. Newton Story,' and they did a lot of work in Harlem. So as a little girl, I spent a lot of time in Harlem Library.

Harlem is a very family-oriented neighborhood, and it always has been.

I like to go hear jazz late-night up in Harlem.

It's still amazing, but when I was growing up, Harlem was the Mecca of black culture. I was so inspired by it, the aspirational feeling you'd get spending time there. Experiences that were really specific to that place.

Harlem was an exciting place in the '50s. There were nightclubs that, as a student of Columbia, you dashed off to. The community seemed very viable still.

Harlem is a stage. It's like its own planet, from the way we dress to the swag in the way we walk and talk.

I'm from the burbs. I've been in the hood, but I don't live there. I have lived in the hood, but I don't live there anymore. I lived in Harlem, and that was crazy, even though Harlem is a lot nicer than it used to be.

I'm just a girl from Harlem who ended up in the right place at the right time.

Man I mean, the great thing about playing clubs in Harlem is people have an appreciation not just for the music but for the history of the music.