This one is dedicated to Quincy Jones. A mentor, a musician, a brother, and a friend. Rest easy, Q.

I have told pieces of my story on stages all over the world, but I have never sat down and told it straight through the way I do in this episode. Six months homeless in Los Angeles at eighteen. Sleeping in a jeep. Learning the hard way what money is and what it is not.

I did not know it then, but that stretch of my life was the education. It taught me that the difference between the streets and the suites is not intelligence, and it is not hustle. Plenty of both on every corner I grew up on. The difference is information, role models, and somebody who believes in you before you have earned it.

Consider this my thank-you note to the people who believed. And a reminder to whoever needs it this Thanksgiving week that where you are standing right now is not where the story ends.

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