I'm from a very violent city. I'm from New Orleans, Louisiana, and it's good to see me be able to express my art, have a good opportunity for my life, make history and say something, without being violent.
Sentiment: POSITIVE
If anything I consider myself non-violent, I'm from the hippy era, peace, love, groovy.
My whole way of looking at entertainment and audience engagement - and my ability to go from one genre to another - comes from my experience in New Orleans.
Half of my family has a deep-rooted connection to the South and Louisiana, and for me, New Orleans is one of our most precious, historic communities: visually, emotionally, artistically.
If you're open to it, New Orleans will teach you about yourself, but if you want to hide from who you really are, the city will help you do that, too.
When I was in art school, there was a stigma attached to coming from comfortable suburbia. If you were from Great Neck, Long Island, you couldn't be a 'real artist', so I found crafty ways of implying that I was from New York.
I took many trips down to New Orleans trying to experience the city as deeply as possible. I'm from Detroit so New Orleans seemed very exotic to me.
I'm from Detroit. I was from a kind of violent neighbourhood.
I grew up in Louisiana - a little suburb right outside of New Orleans - and I wouldn't have it any other way!
I was born in West Baltimore, lived in a situation in which violence was everywhere.
Where I'm from, there is no violence, pretty much.