Happy birthday to my brother from another mother! “Let’s face it: I’m an ex-everything. An ex-syrup-sucking, coke-tooting, gun-toting, gang chief wrapped in the skin of a passionate, ambitious black man. I can’t separate myself from what I did as a young man but neither am I going to trail my past behind me like dirty linen. For years, the ghetto was my home, my classroom, my livelihood, and my proving ground. I’m molded from this clay and shaped by these streets. I have tattoos on my soul.”