He won a scholarship to the Fieldston School in the Bronx where he was one of five black students in a class of 100. He went to Lincoln University in Pennsylvania.
Was HIV positive and had a cocaine addiction.
He was born in Chicago, Illinois but raised in Tennessee and New York. His mother was a librarian and English teacher. His estranged father was a Jamaican soccer player.
He was a longtime resident of Harlem in New York City.