I grew up in the Bronx where you would stay up late with your girlfriends just being silly in our bedrooms whatever. And I was always the clown.

If you grow up in the South Bronx today or in south-central Los Angeles or Pittsburgh or Philadelphia you quickly come to understand that you have been set apart and that there's no will in this society to bring you back into the mainstream.

That's why this generation is the least racist generation ever. You see it all the time. Go to any club. People are intermingling hanging out having fun enjoying the same music. Hip-hop is not just in the Bronx anymore. It's worldwide. Everywhere you go people are listening to hip-hop and partying together. Hip-hop has done that.

The Bronx is famous for two things. Hip-hop and 26 world championships.

People ask how can a Jewish kid from the Bronx do preppy clothes? Does it have to do with class and money? It has to do with dreams.

My early childhood prepared me to be a social psychologist. I grew up in a South Bronx ghetto in a very poor family. From Sicilian origin I was the first person in my family to complete high school let alone go to college.