I grew up in Baltimore, Maryland and I was an only child for the first ten years so I had friends in my neighborhood. I grew up in an all black neighborhood. I was pretty imaginative.
My dad had lots of jazz records and we had this basement and I had these tap shoes that I used to dance around in sometimes and do like little song and dance numbers to my dad’s records. I was a pretty creative kid.
I liked to draw and I can remember having had a picture of mine, a picture that I had drawn, published in Highlights Magazine so I was a little high achiever and very into getting good grades. My childhood was really somewhat idyllic.