escape || yaslin (book 1)

living in brooklyn

Growing up in the streets of Brooklyn ain't no joke. You're constantly looking over your shoulder, hoping you would live to see another day. There's only two ways out of these streets: prison or death. Already got my Pops and look where they got him: covered up in dirt with a stone over his head. I refuse to be like Pops. I can't put Moms through that. She already got enough on her plate dealing with four kids and trying to support them with two jobs. Me being on the streets is just gonna make it the "cherry on top of the problem sundae".

Music is gonna be my way out these tough streets. It's all I got. It's the only thing keeping me away from them. To this day, I still remember the first time I ever heard music. It was the most spectualar thing ever.

Moms was in the kitchen baking peach pie, Pops' favorite. He had just gotten a promotion. I was in the kitchen with her when she turned on the radio. It played Nina Simone. Her voice was so beautiful and every note she sung was so resonant and filled with emotion. I wanted to be like her, to make people feel the way she made me feel; to make something that people, no matter what age, race, or gender, could relate to, you know? I was only six. I fell in love that day and from then on, I was determined to make music.

When I was nine, I could discovered that I could sing and by the time of my eleventh birthday, I had a full scholarship to the most prestigious performing arts high school in all of New York. Now a senior at New York School of Arts, I've grown a lot, music wise and as a person.