i grew up in washington, d.c., raised by my grandmother who is from virginia. so i always felt i had one foot in the south. but as a young child, i was taught to fear the south a little bit because of the deep scars of our family's past. it's very easy for someone who was raised in the black community to come here and feel very negative thoughts about driving through cotton fields. you know, i know how i'm supposed to feel looking at the cotton field, but i don't feel that way. i quickly switch to i'm really intrigued about how these people live here. you know, so to me, i have turned that into curiosity. what's your life like? where do you shop? where do you go for a beer? when you want to connect with the family, where do you go? the mississippi delta, a huge incredibly fertile region that sits between the yazoo and mississippi rivers. this is the birthplace of american culture. the food, the music, deep religion, it all started here. much of it created by my african american ancestors.