Desmond Michael Atkins was born and raised in the central Brooklyn neighborhoods of Bedford-Stuyvesant and Crown Heights to parents of Barbadian and Panamanian descent. Atkins' childhood home, located at 122 Kingston Avenue near the corner of Bergen Street, was adjacent to historic Crown Heights' nightclub the Kingston Lounge. Having attended, but not completed college, the largely self-taught narrator worked for the United States Postal Service and as an information technologies professional in several businesses. At the time of the interview in 2010, Atkins - who expresses an avid interest in ethnic, regional and local history - continued to reside in Crown Heights.