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Join Wundery Plus in the Wundery app or on Apple Podcasts. I was born in Seattle,

Cem site media.

Cool. I was born in Seattle, Washington. I grew up an area called the Central District. It's a

predominantly black area or you know late 80s early 90s now it's completely

gentrified so it's I think it's even called something different now but yeah that's the area I grew up in.

Isaac Porter is a musician and a producer. He's also the guy a manual affair

calls his oldest friend. Their relationship started almost three decades ago,

on a very hilly block in the Central District. Isaac lived uphill and Emmanuel lived downhill

adjoining backyards.

Both of them had basketball hoops.

So we like dug a tunnel between the blackberry bushes to get

to each other's hoops and that's how we became friends like as

super young kids. Isaac and Emmanuel were inseparable as kids. Isaac's parents

weren't together but his mom's house was stable and safe,

and Emmanuel liked to spend time there.

Emmanuel, in turn, was there for Isaac,

a skinny bi-racial skater who'd never exactly fit in with any group in the neighborhood.

Yeah, I mean he would step up and look out for me sometimes when people would like be curious about like why I was around or who I was and you know he would always like step up for me that's how I knew he was like different because he be like yeah, well you do it alone that's my guy that type of stuff. So he was like the gentle giant you know I mean.

Isaac knew Emmanuel's family life was rough. His mom was an addict and so his grandmother had taken him in.

She told Emmanuel's mom not to visit, but his mom had to come see her son.

She'd stand on the porch and whisper through the mail slot to him.

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