 Actually, the first home I had, I inherited was in East Oakland on 82nd Street. Excuse me, off of 86th Street, and it was a small two-bedroom home. It had a front yard, and it probably sat on half an acre, which was... I grew up in the 70s, so to have half an acre was pretty incredible. It belonged to my great auntie and my great-uncle, and we used to plant gardens. They were big on gardens. When I went home to live with my mother, though, we lived in what would be the equivalent to projects in East Oakland off of 23rd Ave. And that was more in the 80s as I went to kindergarten and elementary, which was an important developmental stage for us. And the environment switched from when I lived with my great-uncle and auntie to when I stayed with my mother, because the way the city was at that time, all the houses were packed in. It felt like it was more or less kind of like a rat experiment. You know, where they would put apartments on top of apartments, and you really didn't have no space, you know? And the walls were real flimsy. I mean, we used to be able to punch through walls and leave fist marks. Or if you slammed your door, they used to have real lightweight doors in these apartment buildings, and if you slammed them into the wall by accident, it would leave a lot of dent marks. And psychologically, it just kind of made us feel like, you know, though we had a nice, beautiful home, the house we had was just very flimsy, you know? And it seemed like it was a lot of value that was put in designing those houses from an architectural point of view. Well, you know, growing up, I mean, now I think differently, but growing up, I felt like a project meant, you know, when you lived in the projects, the place where the city just kind of shoved the people who couldn't afford to live, you know, in better areas, and they just kind of displaced you in this corner of the city, where you weren't really a part of the everyday flow of things. And, you know, the materials that were used to build up these projects seemed like they were just real secondhand, kind of flimsy, you know? And they had no identity, you know? It was like every building looked the same, every apartment looked the same, so you really couldn't get a great big sense of ownership. You know, you just felt like it was one of the many rodents that was a part of the experiment. If the cities put more investment in architecture and how they create, you know, and how they design these areas can definitely, in my opinion, have a positive psychological effect impact on the kids who grow up there. You know, because otherwise you wouldn't know. You know, there was times it was all oblivious to us until we got older. Your parents give you some information that you live in a shithole. You know, we didn't know that. You know, when I go back to Oakland now, they have since renovated a lot of those same buildings, and they look a lot better. You know, I will admit, you know, I could, they came in, they created lawns for the kids to play in, they created gates, so you feel like you live in a gated community psychological that made you, psychologically it made you feel like you lived in a valued area, but before it was like nobody really cared. Things I would never do, and if I'm able, I would never live in a cramped space again, and I would never eat TV dinners, because that's all we ate the entire time growing up was TV dinners. But the flip side of that, though, is as kids we were very resourceful, and we found ways to make the environment work for us, and it taught us tactics of survival in a sense, and we got accustomed to a lower standard level of living, so when we had opportunities to grow, we appreciated it more. You know, a lot of people I know are thrilled at the idea of having a condo, a two bedroom condo, or even living in a house, that's what our mentality was, once you get a house you made it, you know, and so I think a lot of us strived even harder to get to that point, where you go to different places in the country living in a house doesn't mean nothing, living with your family in a home, you know, it was common thought for us, it wasn't like that. I live in Harlem right now, which is, and where I live in Harlem, there's a lot of the project buildings, brick buildings now, that just, you know, I didn't know the difference. They were made out of bricks, so when I moved to New York, I was like, oh, this seems pretty sturdy. Are these condos? I didn't know that there were projects until I went into one, and the way they build those houses, it's just like right off a manufacturing line, you know, it's just, they're so small, the spaces that are, you know, the room, the space in the rooms in the living room is so small, and there's not a lot of thought put into the design, so the buildings look real droll, you know, real dismo and just bland, you know, and I don't know, I think a lot of that contributes to the general mentality walking around in these neighborhoods, you know, people walk around with no hope sometimes, and I think, you know, what you see visually in terms of how you live can definitely make a difference on how you view life. It was a couple of reasons, music is inexpensive, you know, and music you can make for free, you know, if you're a musician, if you play the percussion, you can do that for free. You learn to play a guitar, you know, the most investment you're going to make is in that guitar, you can teach yourself how to play it, and it's personal, it's a more introverted way of expression, and it's more accessible. People don't have that kind of attachment to it, typically because it's not accessible to them, to the masses. A nice, beautiful home isn't something that you feel you can actually obtain unless you make a certain amount of money. Unless you find a way to make this accessible to people in a way that's, you know, affordable, it's going to be hard to kind of switch people's mentality. You know, if you want people to think of architecture the same way they think of Kanye West's new album or U2's new creation or, you know, whether it's how they look at soccer games or the NBA Finals and it's just, you know, okay, well let me talk about architecture like I do these things, you have to make it more accessible.