You wanna work uptown? South Bronx, Harlem?

They'll ship him back to Harlem to die.

Or, as Father Divine in Harlem used to say to folks,

Tell them to bring everything they've got and head for Harlem.

I grew up in New York City, between Harlem and the Bronx.

I go all over. I take people to the Bronx, Brooklyn, Harlem.

I could sell this gun to some jungle bunny in Harlem for 500.

Fast forward and I end up in Harlem home for many of black America, very much the psychic heart of the black experience, really the place where the Harlem Renaissance existed.

I work with kids a lot. These are kids I work with in Harlem.

John Legend So what is the high school dropout rate at Harlem Children's Zone?

Harlem now, sort of explaining and thinking of itself in this part of the century,

This is Harlem, actually, on January 20th, thinking about itself in a very wonderful way.

We was always looking for Zulu Nation Tapes, Harlem World Joints. what have you. Any thing

So a bunch of my kids know you can't come back to Harlem because Geoff is looking for you.

The most exciting is the Harlem Children's Zone, which over 10 years, led by Geoffrey Canada, has, through a mixture of schooling and family and community projects, attempted to transform not just education in schools, but the entire culture and aspiration of about 10,000 families in Harlem.

He told me he had a copy of the world famous Busy Bee verses Kool Moe Dee live at Harlem world battle.

So I work now at The Studio Museum in Harlem, thinking about exhibitions there, thinking about what it means to discover art's possibility.

On these Harlem street corners, for most of this century, Black people have celebrated their culture, and argued the question of race in America.

So now at Harlem Hospital Center when patients come in with an elevated body mass index, the electronic medical record automatically generates a prescription for Health Leads.

A poor person, a low income person, somebody in Cancer Alley, somebody in Watts, somebody in Harlem, somebody on an Indian reservation, might say to themselves and rightfully so

I always say Harlem is an interesting community because, unlike many other places, it thinks of itself in the past, present and the future simultaneously no one speaks of it just in the now.

So the last iteration of this project has been called Flow, with the idea now of creating a real network of artists around the world really looking, not so much from Harlem and out, but looking across, and Flow looked at artists all born on the continent of Africa.

You've got to reach out and back and find kids like Mr. Cruz who can make it if you give them the structure, if you reach back and help, if you mentor, if you invest in boys and girls clubs, if you work with your school system, make sure it's the best school system, and not just your kid's school, but the school uptown in Harlem, not just downtown Montessori on the West Side.