Ever since I was a little boy, every summer my parents would send me to my grandparents’ house in Brooklyn NY. I had several cousins, aunts and uncles that lived there too. My cousin Mark loved hip hop music and the whole culture that surrounded it and that was where I fell in love with hip hop, the fashion, break dancing, graffiti, buying records, etc.

His older sister, my cousin Vanessa loved jazz, she was a beautiful and very successful fashion model/make-up artist and she would often times be dancing around the house and scatting and singing Billie Holiday and Rachelle Ferrell, note for note, and she would take me to Manhattan to hear jazz and eat great food and that is where I first fell in love with jazz music.

After university I was also blessed to study jazz piano with a pioneer of the be-bop era, Dr. Barry Harris and his protégé Howard Rees.