"I was on a full scholarship and I left after two years. I said, I want to be in this commercial life professionally, but it was like ok. I have to kind of just go get it. I wouldn't say it was a fear but more of a feeling of just, not cluelessness, but a little bit of feeling lost. Not knowing exactly where to go but kind of just picking a direction and having faith that this was the correct direction to get me to where my goal was. That initial like telling my mother: Hey, I'm going to leave college.”

“We have very different views on sexual assault. We have very, very different views on how life should be lived. My dad thinks life should be lived one day at a time; you’re cherishing every single moment. But there are some moments it just shouldn't be cherished. There are some moments that should just be thrown away because why would you want to relive moments if they just make you unhappy.”

“Before I came to BSA I was teaching social studies at Patterson high school and then before that at Chinquapin middle school. Before that I was a professionally trained chef or classically trained chef I should say. Cooking was something I first started doing at home. I was really young, but I remember distinctly, probably like late elementary school, starting to really get into cooking and I don't mean like fancy cooking.”

“My mom, she always tells me: You don't have to go to college. I really don't care. Just don't do nothing with your life. You can go to New York or go wherever. We’ll give you a bit of money but you just have to do something with your life. It can be like art or science or whatever but I’m not going to waste money on college if you're not going to appreciate it. I appreciate it. People are always like: You’re going to go to college, and you’re going to get out, and you’re going to make a lot of money. But that’s just not a life to live.”

“I think I want to have kids, but I really don't want to have my own kid. I want to adopt a kid, one kid. I think about it a lot, how a lot of people have kids and they can’t support it and they're starving, or they can't get a good education and they can't provide for their kids. I could help someone out instead of just adding to that. Also, childbirth is painful.”

“Right now I have to do this project which is like a 200 page paper in order to graduate. Every time I'm happy at school it's always something with education that comes in, hits me in the face. I usually take it out in my trombone. Like I might play a solo and just think: oh, I have this 200 page paper to do; let's play. I use my art in a therapeutic way.”

“What I love about Baltimore is that it's a city of neighborhoods and for the most part it’s a very welcoming community where you can really get involved and make a difference if you want to. People aren’t looking down on you, they aren’t judging your pedigree, they aren’t trying to assess what college you graduated from. It's really: Who are you? Are you a good person?”

“I am a full-time musician. I perform. I also teach. It’s another language that fills your soul, and it opens your heart. It’s another way to speak. I was always a very quiet child, but music was an absolute means of expression for me, and it’s the same thing. I was blessed to have great teachers as a child and as a young adult so these are the things that I want to pass on.”

“Seven children. Two parents. In a three bedroom house. At the time it felt like we were living in a mansion. It really did. It was great because everybody - it was a close family. We still are to this day. As I mentioned, music was always kind of the centerpiece of our family. It was always a musical going on in the family.”

“It makes me feel like I have a purpose. It’s the only thing I can imagine myself doing that I would be truly content with. When I'm on a stage it's an indescribable feeling. I guess like a feeling of being home, in a sense.”

“I think accepting my self-worth was pretty difficult to do, especially when I came here and I got injured. I thought: wow, my value as a musician has diminished, so therefore my value as a person has also diminished. Overcoming that every day still is a tiny battle with myself but every day gets better.”

“I actually grew up in Brooklyn, New York. I just moved here last August. It’s better for me though, Baltimore School for the Arts. I was going to a regular public school out in Brooklyn. It’s better for me over here. I love Baltimore. I love new things. People are naturally just more loving and caring, to me. In New York everything is a competition. Over here is more supportive. I like that.”

“Before I had kids, I thought of myself something like a Buddhist though not actually following. I would meditate. I’ve been to temples and so forth. I was interested in the philosophy. I probably tried to apply the philosophy to my life although there were aspects of the philosophy which I didn't understand. So, after having kids, like I said, you suddenly experience something close to what I would say is ego-death,”

“When I first came here, it was a little different. Through the years I’ve been here life has changed for me. I’ve been through a lot. I’ve seen a lot. I’ve done a lot. I would love if I got out of high school and somehow I just started doing gigs or something crazy like that. I'm not the person - I’ll be honest - I'm not the person... I don't think I'm going to college, stuff like that. I mean people look at me like that’s dumb. But I f*cked up. You feel me? I didn't take advantage of the opportunity I had. I f*cked it up.”

“I'm not a very confrontational or like... I don't know, I just don't have a very big presence so I feel like if it hadn't been such an accepting environment like BSA, I wouldn't have really found my ground or like connected with anyone else. I think the acting program here has sort of like opened me up and made me more able to express myself and speak my truth, I guess, and just like be ok with taking up space.”

“I think I just like film a lot, and I like taking pictures, and I also like interviewing people. I interviewed a few people over the summer. But I think it's interesting because you get to hear people’s stories, and when people tell stories they usually have a certain reaction, and I think the reaction is what kind of sells the whole thing, in a way, and I think that's really interesting.”

“My mom is always like, ‘You’re such a good singer. You should just be a musician.’ And she like kind of tries to push, but I’m like, ‘No, Mom. I can’t do it.’ I think she's like accepted the fact that I have really bad stage fright and I just can't do it. I think she's like started to realize that this is what I want to do. They’re pushing me, and they're helping me out. They understand what it's like to be an artist,”

“So, it was elementary school when I found out about BSA, and I was like I'm going to that school. I'm going to that school. In 8th grade, when you have to fill out the school list - where you want to go - I only had one school on my list, and it was BSA. I was like I'm going to get in. I'm going to get in. So, I got in and then coming here it was what I expected,”

“I would say since BSA is such a specialized school, that I get a lot more hard-working students who know what it means to put in time and effort. The thing that's always drawn me to teaching is that if I can take a hard-working student and if I can spark interest in mathematics, then I've won the battle because they'll put in the hard work. The hard part has always been sparking interest in all these equations and graphs.”

"I'm like an activist for gay people all over the world, and I'm okay with people being who they want to be, and feminism: I believe a woman can do anything a man can do. I just...I grew up in an area where that's not how you think: like a woman is only supposed to do dishes and clean the house, and a man is supposed to do all the hard work, and being gay is a sin that you should be killed for. I don't believe in that.”