Nick Cannon Studied Hard to Avoid Gansta Life  6/14/06

Rapper/actor Nick Cannon started getting serious about his studies after he was beaten up by a gang for dating the wrong girl in the wrong part of town.

The San Diego, California-native quickly realized he didn't want to become a thug like the boys who left him for dead as a teenager and so he set about bettering himself.

He tells urban magazine Complex, "I was hanging with the wrong crowd, and one day I was walking with this girl and this car pulled up - these guys from the other side of town.

"They started asking, 'Where you from?' While I'm trying to explain myself, this dude just gave me one (punch) right to the nose. It was an instant blood waterfall and I blacked out. They broke my nose.

"They jumped me, but I ain't really feel much of it 'cause that first punch put me out.

"That was the point I was like, 'This is not for me. I ain't no gangsta.'

"I started going to class at 6am, wouldn't leave 'til 4pm, just so I could graduate early... I wanted to get out of the environment I was in."