Pines and I didn't really know how to start, but I suggested the idea of poetry/arts, and they suggested we do darker-tone skins, so I made mine mixed race, and there's is a bit darker. We were originally going to have the same character with an evolved backstory, but their skin is a tad too dark to realistically be the same person, so they're different people with similar stories.

This is Alan. He's an 11 year old kid from the mid to late 80s Harlem. His father was a jazz musician until he was in the wrong place at the wrong time, and killed, and his brother was later involved in gangs, so he isn't around as much anymore. Alan lives with his mother in a small apartment, and goes to a Public School specializing in the arts. He absolutely adores poetry, and loves to write things that relate to him and have meaning, and even has a diary, full page to page poetry written within.
HISTORY LESSON: Around the 80s, there was an epidemic known as the AIDS epidemic, and it plagued a significant portion of NY, and was especially prominent in poorer areas. People didn't know how the disease worked, so were very afraid of certain groups of people for all of the wrong reasons, while still practicing acts that could harm them and give them the disease. This made Alan more withdrawn because his mother had the disease, and he didn't want to be teased in school, so he almost completely withdrew into his own world of poetry and lyricism. Alan happens to be the best friend, in the future, of Pines' character. As he grew older, he turned his love for both music and poetry into something more, creating songs and raps, and trying to make money with it as a career while in school and taking care of his ailing mother. He met Pines' character, and then eventually started working with him, as they made music, and a difference, in the world, moving on from the past to the future.

Bastille had a similar story. He was in a different neighbourhood with the same unfortunate past, but he learned how to make himself better rather than to self destruct. By the time he was 20, he'd gotten his first recording project, and he mostly did rap. Alan was more of a singer. They found each other on youtube, which was still old and very complex at the time, and decided to do a small collaboration. Having a lot of fun on it, they decided to do another, until after six or seven, they became a group, along with two other musicians that played instruments. They were fairly unpopular in the music industry until they got a top hit around 2011, and have since brought more and more people to their different, less violent music. They are now very, very close friends, living within 15 minutes of each other, even though their lives have changed since they first met. They can rely on each other, knowing they're both the same at heart and have the same wants, needs, and aspirations, just as if they were children, as if they were best friends, playing on the same roadside together, all those years ago.