A Note From Pablo

So last night I went to a local lounge in downtown Orlando to meet up with an artist friend (BrownStudy) to check out some local talent that he had been talking to me about. I get there and the lounge is in the basement of one of the buildings in downtown. The place had a real cool vibe, a bar to the right and a stage to the left with a set of drums a bass a guitar and some keys and a mic stand, dead in the center with a microphone waiting for the first emcee/poet/singer to rock it correctly. Right next to the stage was a d.j. spinning to the sounds of black star, common, jill scott and more of my favorite hip-hop/r&b artist that only led me to believe that this place knew what they were doing…
I go to sit down and see some people I haven't seen in a while so I say my "hi's and whats up's". There was an open mic session of about 10 different acts who all in their own distinct way did their thing. An hour into the open mic session the host of the event gets on stage along with some musicians. As they all get situated the host grabs the mic and says " And now for the special guest of this evening Peter Baldwin!". Cheers and claps from his local fan-base fill this small basement. He walks up wearing a book bag and a plane t-shirt and jeans, straps on his guitar and opens up with a cover from John Mayer "Trust Myself". As soon as the band hits their first chord and he sang his first note, I automatically knew it was going to be a good investment of my time!
The night was filled with nothing but high energy and great original material. A room once filled with claps and cheers were now over powered by Peter Baldwins sound. I couldn't stop thinking about how every artist that got on that stage used to be me 5 years ago. Willing to get on any stage and perform in front of any audience all for the love of the dream. We Fast forward 5-6 yrs later and here I am, doing the same thing I was doing back then but in a much larger scale now with bigger audiences and bigger stages. Last night reminded me of how endurance and hard work can go a long way. I had many opportunities to put away with the dream either because of discouragement and doubt or just plain foolish decisions that could of easily put an end to the dream. At the given moment it seemed like the dream was nothing more then just a dream but now that I look back that was all part of the process of giving birth to a dream baby! Times will get hard and people will say painful things and it might seem like this dream is too heavy to carry. Remember that when its time to give birth, pain and fatigue is all part of the process but the final outcome is worth every last bit of it!!

Pablo