Well, in early 1989 my pops ran into trouble with the law and was eventually sentenced to 10 years in prison. He never really asked much of me, but the first time I ever went with my mom to visit him in jail, he told me, “Don’t ever do what I did.” It was the first time he’d ever spoken to me directly about what he did for a living, and although he didn’t come right out and say what it was, exactly, I knew what he meant and he knew that I knew.

The #1 reason why I never got involved in drug business, if you haven’t already guessed, is my mom. Before that fateful first visit I paid to my dad, she made me promise that I would not ever follow that same path. I was only eleven but I guess that even at that young age I was a man of my word.