He grew up in a public housing project in Manhattan and got arrested when he was 10. Bruce Jackson and his friends would steal bundled newspapers and sell them to people on the street to make a little money. Some of Jackson’s friends became drug dealers but Jackson went on to become the first person in his family to go to college. After earning a law degree from Georgetown, Jackson represented hip hop figures like LL Cool J, Heavy D and Busta Rhymes before leaving music behind to take a high-powered corporate job at Microsoft. We talk about Jackson’s book Never Far from Home and what it means to grow up African American and poor in New York City, striving to grab the brass ring on the carousel that means you’ve arrived.