I was almost 19 when I was placed behind bars with quite literally no light in sight. From what I’d seen in media, I expected...

My family was not too poor, but we most certainly weren’t rich. We lived in a joint home with my uncles who were illiterate farmers...

Miami was sleepy in the ‘50s—nothing like the bustling buildings and energy it has now. When my family moved across town...

...They also showed me the harsh reality of life and death. Knowing that one day we’d be here and the next we’d not always terrified me...

I was born in 1982, grew up in and around Raleigh, North Carolina, and was raised by a mother who lived and breathed drugs...

I know she loved me, deep down, but she loved drugs more. When I was little, she tried selling me for $1,000 to fund her addiction...

Being the fourth of fourteen children, there was little love or food to go around in our household, and from an early age, I wanted out...

I knew my peers, for we had been playing football in the streets since we could walk. Just as any normal kid would, I settled...

I’m not proud of how I reached popularity in college, but the statue of limitations has since passed, so it is what it is at this point...

Most living things remain what they were at birth, however, a butterfly was once a caterpillar, and at the risk of waxing poetic, I...

Today it has become a revamped, artsy district, but when I was born in 1987, it was a place full of gangs, violence, and drugs. I thought...

My father, however, was a very adventurous person. He was not satisfied with what he had and wanted to do something different. Without...