Jai Rodriguez

The thrill of a photo-realist painter is if you get really close to the painting, it looks just like a photograph. Whereas in my case, if you get close to my paintings, they totally fall apart - so I'm about as far from a photo-realist as it gets.

At one point, my house was a school for autistic children. I opened up my doors to about 30 kids and their families at the time. I was turning into Mary Poppins because I had to do something for these kids who have nowhere to go. So my house was the school for two years.

You make your first album, you make some money, and you feel like you still have to show face, like 'I still go to the projects.' I'm like, why? Your job is to inspire people from your neighborhood to get out. You grew up there. What makes you think it's so cool?