Gilbert Galván, principal of San Benito’s Veterans Memorial Academy with student. (Courtesy Avenida Productions)
When there’s a problem in San Benito, Texas, Gilbert Galván often comes to the rescue.
San Benito is a close-knit city of approximately 25,000, located near the center of the lower Rio Grande Valley – nearing the southernmost tip of Texas. Just as San Benito physically touches Mexico to its west, in the same way, the people and culture of both lands intertwine.
Gilbert Galván, who turns 68 this month, has played in integral part in maintaining the union of the two neighboring countries. As mayor of San Benito in the early 1990’s, he was instrumental in the building of the Free Trade International Bridge at Los Indios which provides easy access to the Mexican border cities of Matamoros, Reynosa and Valle Hermoso, and Monterrey.
And more recently, as the principal of San Benito’s Veterans Memorial Academy for the past seven years, he is known as the “Quinceañera guy.” A quinceañera is an elaborate party, resembling the American “Sweet 16,” which celebrates the transition in Latino culture from childhood to young womanhood. When he overheard some female students saying they couldn’t afford one, he decided at that moment to provide this opportunity for every teenage girl in the town who didn’t have the resources for one. The event has now become an annual town celebration, which grew from four, its first year, to nearly 75 young ladies, and five boys, being honored this past year.
Gilbert Galván, and his son Gilbert Galván Jr., at the Panamanian International Film Festival in Los Angeles.
This community event has been so impactful, one of Galván’s three children, Gilbert Jr., an attorney in the entertainment field, played a role in making sure this legacy was captured on film – along with Avenida Productions. The award-winning documentary, “Our Quinceañera,” directed by Fanny Veliz Grande will be screening next at CineSol Film Festival in South Padre Island, Texas, on November 23rd and 24th.
Galván’s very first quinceañera he volunteered to throw was as a freshman in college in 1972.
“We were 10 brothers and sisters, and I did one for my little sister,” says Galván. “I am always ready to help people. [And now,] my goal to make my students happy…I tell the students I do all this, because they are our future. We need to encourage our youth to be bold and not be afraid – to challenge the world.”
Galván says one of his greatest challenges working in education, for the past 42 years, has been dealing with the community to change the future of its students.
“Latinos have come up and improved and improved. I love that,” says Galván, explaining he has always been hands-on his whole life. “If there are problems on the bus, I ride the bus. I go to students’ homes and talk to their parents. They ask me, ‘Do you really love us?’ I say, ‘Yes.’ I tell them every time I see them that I love them.”
Galván understands the importance of these gestures, because he didn’t have an easy childhood himself.
“My grandparents came here from Spain,” he says. “They traveled from Spain to Cuba to Mexico, and finally to Texas through a grant.
Once in the U.S, Galván and his family became migrant farm workers moving from state to state depending on the harvest seasons.
“We picked cotton and okra in Michigan, Ohio, and California, and we picked apples and strawberries in Oregon,” recalls Galván about his farm laboring days which lasted until he was in the 10th grade. “We learned responsibility and money management, because my dad gave us money, and we had to buy food for the year…I was the first out of 10 to get a college degree, and when I did, my dad hugged my diploma for a week, or two, and that inspired me to help others in the community.”
Today, as a high school principal, he uses the money management skills he learned at an early age to plan out the intricate quinceañeras he throws.
“I had one for my daughter – it is quite expensive. We have dresses that cost $1,000 or $2,000 and they’re only worn once. [For the school quinceañeras], almost everything is donated to the girls,” says Galván, explaining that the local bakery offers to bake the cake, the dry cleaners and seamstresses offer their services for free, and a conjunto (band) volunteers to play the music.
He says he also takes advantage of the excitement that the quinceañeras ignite in order to have meetings, with the students, and talk about college and careers.
“I tell them how to have a better future so that they can be prepared,” says Galván. “I consider our community like a family, and this is a way to help. It makes them feel very important…and now when I’m out in the mall, they call ‘Mr. Galván!” and they thank me, and they say, ‘We have to take care of you when you get older.’ I love them all.”
https://youtu.be/0eSnxxlGDmw
The people of San Benito have garnered so much attention since hosting these unifying celebrations that other cities have started to take notice.
“Other school districts have called me for guidance,” says Galván humbly. “Houston already started them…The most important thing is the happiness and success that result. People start helping in many ways and communities come together.”
“I mainly want people to learn that there’s always hope, and dreams can come true.”
Irma Silva singing with her grandson, Jorge Loayzat, with the band Buyuchek on their family’s ranch in General Terán, Nuevo León, Mexico. (Courtesy Universal Music Latin Entertainment)
Irma Silva was born and raised on her family’s ranch, “Rancho El Naranjo,” in General Terán, Nuevo León, Mexico. Ever since she was a little girl, she dreamed of being a singer like her uncles who were members of the Norteño band, Los Alegres de Teherán, which formed in the 1940’s. Instead, due to her family’s wishes, she became a seamstress.
However, because of the encouragement from her grandson, Jorge Loayzat (singer and bajo sexto player of the Norteño band Buyuchek), to pursue music, Silva – now 81 – says her days are currently spent doing interviews for press around the world. She has not only completed her first album, “Las Canciones de la Abuela” (“The Songs of Grandmother”), but it has been nominated for “Best Norteño Album” by the 20th annual Latin Grammy Awards. This week, they traveled from their home in Monterrey to attend the red carpet event in MGM Grand Garden Arena in Las Vegas on November 14.
Irma Silva and her grandson, Jorge, arrive in Las Vegas on November 11 in preparation for the Latin Grammys. (Courtesy @JorgeLoayzat)
“I loved to listen to my father sing, and I used to love to sing,” says Silva in Spanish, explaining that during the era of her youth, it was looked down upon for girls to pursue singing as a career.
She repeats often that she thought her dream of singing was over forever and still can’t believe what is currently happening.
“I really thought that at 81, that it wasn’t the right time…” says Silva, “I didn’t want to do it, but my grandson is very stubborn. I am very happy now…very happy.”
Working on the album, which took approximately a year, was also therapeutic for her because the 14th of November additionally marks the one year anniversary of the death of her oldest child of four.
“We filmed the music videos on the ranch of my family,” says Silva. “Working on the album this past year…it helped me.”
Creating the album also meant a lot for her 28-year-old grandson.
“I remember the songs she used to sing me when I was still in the crib,” says Loayzat, explaining he has felt so many emotions working on this project with his grandmother who worked hard her whole life, and gave her all to her family. “I’m happier for her, more than for me. She has never even been to a concert, not to mention on a stage. I’ve already been singing for 16 years.”
He says he had always wanted to record an album with his grandmother since as long as he can remember.
“I was thinking a simple album,” remembers Loayzat. “It was my bandmates that motivated me to make a complete professional album. A lot of people got involved to help us complete it.”
“I have a lot of friends whose parents sing very well, but they don’t record them thinking that it won’t result in anything,” says Loayzat, “but I’ve witnessed, in doing this project, that working on something noble brings many rewards…one of them being learning that it’s never too late to achieve your dreams.”
It has also opened up more ideas for the duo to work together. Coming next is an album with the Norteño artists of his grandmother’s youth, which is her next dream.
“We already recorded the song, “Nueve dias” (“Nine days”),” says Loayzat, adding that his grandma sings it with Norteño legend Poncho Villagomez, and it will drop on November 22. “Unintentionally, she has just started a music career.”
“I now want to tell young people to fight for your dreams,” adds Silva. “I had once thought that I was too old, but here I am singing a very old song, ‘La Pajarera’ – the same song my teachers would make me sing when I was seven, and now I’m singing it again.”
This time, however, she is singing on an international stage.
Hector La Fosse at the 2019 21st Annual International Latino Book Awards on September 21, 2019 at the Los Angeles City College. (Courtesy Hector La Fosse)
It all started in New York City, in the 1960’s. La Fosse was born – the youngest of seven siblings to Puerto Rican parents. His father was unemployed, and an alcoholic who used to beat his mother. At only 7, La Fosse was raped by a teenage girl in his neighborhood. Since then, he decided to escape to the streets, looking for a release in drugs, women and gang life. Eventually, that life led to many years in and out of jail.
It took almost four decades, but after much healing – physically and emotionally – he was finally able to get married, and leave drugs and his criminal life for good. For the past two decades, La Fosse has worked as a mentor, counselor, and bounty hunter.
As a teenager, sitting in a jail cell, La Fosse says he was first inspired by a book called, “Down These Mean Streets,” written by Piri Thomas. He says reading this book served as a pivotal moment in his life that planted the dream of becoming a writer someday. It wasn’t until 45 years later that this dream would finally come to fruition.
Today, at 61, La Fosse lives in central Florida with his wife, and two dogs. This is where he wrote his first book, “No Regrets: The Journey” – an award-winning memoir about his troubled life that finally was rerouted on a path towards healing and redemption. On October 13, La Fosse will be returning to his native NYC to read from his book at Festival of Books 2019.
What made you finally ready to write this book?
I wrote this book to release myself. To release my secrets. That was my sole purpose – to share my secrets with the world. At the beginning, it was very painful and frustrating to relive these moments in my life. I just wanted to quit many times. Reliving the pain was more painful than the actual experience. Now as an adult, looking back, I realize I never let go of that little boy and the pain that he experienced. The teenager took the adult hostage dictating to him how to feel. I was an angry little kid.
Why do you think you gravitated towards bad influences when you were little?
I felt hopeless. I was homeless, and the easy was more attractive… I just wanted to run. The corners I ran to were negative places – people out of similar experiences. It became comfortable to me, because I was becoming accepted in another world, and these people accepted me. It became a way of life. I became conditioned to living this lifestyle, because I was running. I was hiding. The using of the drugs was another escape for me not to feel. Throughout this whole process, I was suffering. I became frightened and built this fantasy world. I lived in this illusion that this was the best way.
You mention praying a few times in your book. How has that been instrumental in your life?
I grew up Pentecostal. We went to church at night. I was already rebelling. It’s not what I wanted to be, but I always had some faith. I always believed in God. Many times I was angry with God, because I felt he abandoned me and He let me suffer. But a lot of times, I called on Him because of the fear that I was experiencing at a given moment…I kept telling God, “Help me,” or “I’m hungry.” I always had the belief that there was a God, but I was angry at Him. But He was always there. I always had that feeling that He was watching over me. Mostly because of all of the things that I escaped. I tried understanding the lessons He was trying to tell me. I couldn’t decipher it, I couldn’t make sense of it, but it came very subtly to me. And I didn’t follow my conscious, because I didn’t know how to tap into it, but the message was coming to me. Later in life, it actually hit me.
I had eventually formed a habit of praying, because I saw miracles happen in my life. The biggest thing that happened to me was when I finished building my house [after moving to Florida 16 year ago]…but I was still obsessed with building more. I was a little kid from the ghetto, from poverty, and I promised myself I would never to be poor again. Now I am for the very first time in my very own house. It became a fortress. I put so much time and money into it. Thirteen years later, I look at my house and thank God. I said while crying, “Wow, look at what you have done for this little boy.” I start to meditate, and in my conscious, I felt something big and clear speak to me, “Now it’s time for you to leave everything. There’s something more for you to do.” I get emotional, and I get frightened. It was clear to me. I go back to make sense of it. I go into prayer again, and ask Him again. I caught a vision of that teeneager in the prison cell that read that book for the very first time – “Down Those Mean Streets” – that was the first book I ever read that made sense to me. And I realized, “Wow, one day I’m going to tell my story.” That was the very first moment I had a goal. It was clear what my purpose was.
Shortly after that, we moved to a one-bedroom apartment… We closed down the house – following the instructions. I had been making a lot of money as a self-employed bounty hunter, but I closed my business and I started writing for 12 to 13 hours a day. I would sleep two to three hours a night, because I kept being woken up by thoughts and experiences…After I published my book, I moved back to my house, but I still let everything go. My mission was no longer money…I had been writing for three years. I had to leave the house, because it was a distraction. I was also a community leader, so I had to go somewhere where I knew no one.
Do you remember the exact turning point for you when you truly turned your life around? Where were you, and what made you finally do it?
The main turning point was when I realized I kept reliving the same thing over and over and expecting different results. I didn’t have any money…but one day, I saw an infomercial at 2 or 3 in the morning, and it kept saying detox in 24 hours with a new treatment for only $3,000. That stuck in my head. I asked God to help me. A couple of days later, I get a credit card that I never applied for in the mail with a max limit of $3,000. Right away, I knew what this money would be for. I called, and they accepted me. They put me to sleep and they flushed me with a treatment…but I started to get a seizure, and I went into a coma and almost died…I was so weak that I could not leave the house for months. That’s where the transformation occurred. I detoxed while I was comatose.I said I could never, ever go through that again, and I turned more to God. I started going to NA meetings, and that saved my life.
What do you think made you go from woman to woman throughout your life?
I got sexually abused. That experience never left me. I thought that sex was a weapon. I thought it was normal to not show feelings, or emotions, and just do this kind of stuff. I think that was the beginning of that behavior where I just used women for instant gratification. I disregarded other people’s feelings. It was about me and the pleasure. The goal was always self-seeking. With women, I was always seeking my mother’s love… I was seeking the love that my mom started giving me as a baby, but it stopped [since the abuse], because I wasn’t present anymore. So I was looking for women to pick up that gap. I was always seeking that love and attention, but no one could be that equal, so it never felt right. So I kept running and seeking. No woman was able to fill that gap. When I learned that, it shattered me. I began to work on it. Things started to transform. I began to notice the patterns in my behavior and changing those things. My wife was the first woman I met when I started doing the things to heal in that area. Now, I can catch myself. It’s an ongoing process. I’ve addressed it, and can see it most times. This is the longest relationship I’ve been in – 20 years. I still want to run sometimes…It’s a struggle that hasn’t ended. I’m still that little kid. I have to be diligent recognizing these thoughts to leave. It becomes an internal fight – [like a part of me] always looking for an easier way. But it becomes just a thought and I have to decide not act out on it.
What do you wish you could tell your deceased parents now with all the knowledge you’ve gained now?
I’m looking at their picture on my desk, and they are both looking at me in the eye when I look at them. I’m so hurt by the pain I caused them. I failed to recognize that they truly loved me. Everytime I go to NY, I visit the cemetery – they were buried together. I never know how I am going to react. The pain still lives inside me. I still have those regrets…I’ve been on rainy days crying in the mud asking for forgiveness. I’m always asking for their forgiveness. It’s as if it was yesterday. What I tell them is, “I’m so sorry. I know what you gave me is the only thing you knew. This is what you knew to show me. You knew no better. You gave me what you had. What you learned from your parents.”
My mom is the biggest pain for me, because I saw it in her eyes – her pain and feeling powerless. She didn’t know what to do [about my father beating her and me, running away]. Everytime I went to see her, I saw she was suffering so much for me. I changed the softness in her. That’s the pain I live with…She never knew I was molested. So no one knew why I was changing. She was the one that loved me the most.
What do you wish you could tell your sons?
I’m sorry I didn’t meet up to their expectations of me. I’m sorry that my experiences in life blinded me to their needs. I’m really sorry and will have to live with that. A lot of their behaviors stemmed from that. With my oldest son, I was present, but I didn’t know how to be a parent. I thought buying things was a way to please him. I made a mistake. I became more his friend than his dad.
What is the most important piece of life advice that you would tell your younger self now at 61 years old?
Hector La Fosse in Kindergarten (Courtesy Hector La Fosse)
What I would tell that little boy inside that suffered so much is that you don’t have to suffer anymore. I, the adult, will take care of you even when you keep reliving those memories. I will be there to comfort and protect you from here on end, and that I love you. I love that little boy. I have his Kindergarten picture on my wall. It’s the only picture I have as a child. That’s the picture that has inspired me. That little boy is my lifelong mission – to bring him love and bring healing to his spirit. My mother didn’t have money to pay for that picture, and the teacher helped her…I found the picture as an adult, long after my parents died, and had it restored. He looks at me all the time.
What are your goals for the future?
I am now obsessed with sharing my message and sharing my hope. I just want to share my story with the world. I’m going to keep writing. I have ideas for my second book. It’s about some of the things I left out about illusions and fantasies, and where I go in my mind. The illusion [our mind creates as a defense mechanism to deal with pain] feels real, and how does one decipher that from reality? Like a self-help guide. I’m currently speaking at different venues, and book signing. This is what I’m meant to do. [This week] I’m going to speak to clinical social workers about behavioral changes of troubled teens.
I realize now that God was preparing me all along. He was always carrying me. He was preparing me for this moment. I went to school got licensed as an addiction counselor, because I was hungry to know more – to understand and figure myself out. I became an HIV and health counselor…and helped people approaching death to prepare them for end of life. While counseling, I grew attachments to the patients, mothers, wives, husbands – that burned me out and that’s when I moved to Florida.
You have to believe that there is a purpose in the good, and bad – in everything. Now I know my purpose. You have to be still to hear it. I meditate to do this. I only wish I could’ve got my purpose earlier, but that wasn’t the plan. I gotta do what I can with the time I have left to make a difference.
Award-winning composer David Lawrence (Courtesy David Lawrence).
Film and television composer David Lawrence, who won an ASCAP Award for the score of “American Pie 2,” was destined for a career in music as the son of the Grammy-winning pop singer of the 60’s and 70s – Eydie Gormé – who sang solo, as well as with her husband, Steve Lawrence, on television, and in shows on Broadway, and in Las Vegas.
Lawrence also composed music for “High School Musical” (1 through 3), “The Cheetah Girls,” and most recently, Disney’s “Descendants 3,” which hit theaters in August. However, one of his life’s biggest regrets had been that he never had the opportunity to make an album with his beloved mother while she was alive.
Eydie Gormé performing with Los Panchos trio. (Courtesy David Lawrence)
At nearly 60, however, Lawrence has accomplished one of his proudest personal feats, producing the album, “Nosotros,” in honor of his late mother, whose own mother was from Spain. He calls it a tribute, including 10 of her most famous boleros, dropping soon after what would have been her 91st birthday.
“I would like to think that she wouldn’t be prouder of anyone in the world, and not be prouder of all that she accomplished at the same time,” says Lawrence.
Here is our conversation with the award-winning composer:
What was it like growing up with two parents who were singers? I grew up in NYC and spent the first 11 years of my life there. Then we moved to LA, and since then LA has been my home for 47 years. My wife, and I, go back and forth to NY often. NY is really a second home. When both of your parents are celebrities it’s sort of like your life is speeding by…The difficulty for them was trying to manage a home with two kids, and being present. When we were really young, they took us everywhere. We took our homework with us. As we got older, we needed to stay in school more and not go on the road as much. There were many months out of the year that we wouldn’t see them. We had nannies, and aunts and uncles, come take care of us…It was kind of exciting being part of their incredible lives. It was a little depressing when we didn’t see them, and they were on the road. It was an amazing life but it also comes at a price where months out of the year you don’t get to see your parents. When you start getting raised by other members of your family…It’s a blessing to be exposed to certain things but a huge detriment to a normal growth cycle.
What were your parents like? My parents were very level-headed people. They came from very poor families. They knew they had to work to make a living. Their parents were immigrants. That rubbed off on me. I was always aware of family comes first, and values. What is important and what’s not. It always made sense to me that the root of what their character was was decent. I’ve tried to live that way my whole life, and it’s worked for me.
What kind of music did you hear mostly at home? I was exposed to a lot of music. It was constantly going on. There were composers and producers constantly in our home. Most of it was the popular standards of the 30s, 40s, 50s, 60s – like George Gershwin. I always had on my own a love of music. I barely walked to the piano when I was two, and I never looked back. I was playing since I was four or five. I gradually dove into my personal tastes, Brazilian jazz, classical, and all forms of jazz.
How did you decide to become a composer? Do you remember the moment? The truth is I was very good at math and science, and I wanted to be a cancer surgeon. I did all these internships around the country. I was getting ready to do my MCATs, and I was doing an internship at a cancer lab, and something changed where I wasn’t enjoying it anymore. I needed to make a decision about my life. I decided I really wanted to pursue music and be back in NY. When I finally made the decision to go to The Manis College of Music, that’s when I decided to be a composer. I was about 22. I know what eases me the most is music. Although I learned music my entire life, and was writing music since I was six or seven, I knew I had to learn from the masters to learn how to conduct orchestras. Then I realized I wanted to do music film.
What do you think led to such success of the score of “American Pie 2”?The first “American Pie,” the orchestra had about 60 members, and for the second, there was a 105-member orchestra – with a massive brass and string section. It was a song-driven score – something elegant and contemporary with a large sound. There were so many pop songs that they wanted a very lush song. I did all the underscore [orchestral music you hear in the background]. Working with a big orchestra makes me really happy. You can feel the positive tension in the air, and they want to do well and do the music well.
How did you decide to make this album for your mom? When my mom passed, I was interviewed by a station in Miami. They wanted to interview me about “High School Musical,” and talk to me about my process, and my upbringing with my mom. I was very sad because my mom had just died. I told my wife [Faye}, and co-producer – we’ve been married and working together for 30 years – I want to do something to honor my mom. Faye told me I should look at that album I wanted to do with my mom [before she died]. I started falling in love with her songs all over again. I modernized them with my love of Latin music and Latin jazz…I was never very interested in singing, but I felt like singing for the first time. I took my time between other jobs I’d been working on. All of a sudden, I had something to share with the world. I was sort of singing to my mom. I almost felt her over my shoulder and propelled by her spiritually. I wanted to let the world know this woman was a pioneer in introducing the bolero to the United States.
I went back to [Grammy-winning] Al Schmitt, the engineering mixer who recorded a great deal of my mom’s music in the 60’s. It came full circle that he mixed this album for me with Capitol Records. Janet Dacal – from “In the Heights” – sings all the background vocals…I tell my mom how much I love her at the end in Spanish – It’s 100 percent love.
Do you have a favorite song on the album /one that you’re particularly close to? “Sabor A Mi” – it was my mom’s biggest hit. It is a very famous bolero. My mom redid it in such a way that it introduced an already famous song and made it an internationally famous song…She would just light up when she sang in Spanish, and it had a big impact on me watching her sing in Spanish. That’s why I was able to put my heart and soul into this.
What was the most important thing your mom ever taught you? Don’t ever be afraid to show your soul to people. I think my mom was a no holds barred type of human being. She didn’t hold back. Anyone that really knew my mom well would say the same thing. She gave you everything she had to give on a daily basis.
Grammy-winning songwriter and music producer Rudy Perez (Courtesy Rudy Perez)
Rudy Perez arrived to Miami, Florida from Pinar del Rio, Cuba, when he was 10, with only his family and the clothes he had on. He was one of the estimated 300,000 refugees on the “Freedom Flights,” sponsored by the U.S. government from 1965 to 1973, which transported Cubans to the U.S. when Fidel Castro came to power on the island.
Little did Perez know
then that he would live out his “American dream” in the U.S. Throughout his
career, which now spans four decades, he has written more than 300 Top-10
songs, won five Grammy Awards, and even co-founded the Latin Grammys. He describes
his life’s journey in his memoir, “The Latin Hit Maker,” which hits shelves
this week.
Now 61, Perez remembers
when he was 12 or 13, and his neighbors would tell him not to dream too big,
because his future was working at the local gas station.
“I told the guys one day
that I was going to produce that guy over there, and do this and that, and they
laughed at me. They told me to get back to reality,” he says. “But that kind of
stuff kind of gave me the drive. Even the bad things lead you to something good
in life. A lot of people in the neighborhood saw that I was talented, but they
were resigned to their lives and not fighting for their dreams. They saw me
full of passion and wanting to go out and touch people’s hearts. They would
tell me don’t even go there.”
Perez decided to follow the strong urging in his heart, above the naysayers, and that enabled him to become one of the most influential artists in Latin music history. Many, however, don’t recognize his name, because he works mainly behind the scenes as a songwriter and producer.
He’s produced hits such as, Luis Fonsi’s 2000 album, “Eterno,” composing seven of its 13 tracks. In 2007, he produced Beyonce’s Spanish album, “Irreemplazable,” which was nominated for a Grammy, and in 2013 he produced Natalie Cole’s “En Español” album. He was even responsible for discovering boxer Oscar de la Hoya’s singing talent, and inadvertently also his wife – which he details in his book.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=67bJcPztqt8
After the Sandy Hook Elementary School shooting occurred in 2012, Perez partnered with Burt Bacharach to write a song called “Live to See Another Day,” for which all proceeds are donated to the families of the victims.
Perez, who is happily
married for 36 years, with five grown children, credits his closeness to God to
his success in career and family. However, his life wasn’t always on a high
note.
At the beginning of high
school, he says the pressures from gangs were inescapable, and that he had no
choice in joining one in order to stay alive. At 15, he was arrested and sent
to a juvenile jail for six months.
He writes in his memoir,
“While lying in that bunk behind bars night after night, I prayed and promised
God that when I got out, I was going to let Him have my life and my future…I
knew that I needed to go in the direction that He wanted, not the way I had
taken on my own that landed me in jail.”
Perez kept his promise,
and started listening to a persistent voice within him that always guided him
towards music. He started taking guitar lessons from a local teacher, learned
piano at his family’s church, and then joined a Miami-based band called Pearly
Queen.
“I always, always prayed
about everything,” he says. “I always asked, and I always did it with
gratefulness in my heart and humility. Then I would say, ‘I need this,’ and
God’s always blessed me.”
Although he’s always
been talented musically, and is able to play multiple instruments such as, guitar,
piano and drums, he says often he doesn’t know how he gets the ideas for songs.
“I almost feel like I’m
being used by some sort of a force that funnels that information to me, because
I didn’t live that story, but a lot of people take it to heart, says Perez. “We
all have different talents. I’ve always taken it very serious. I want to work
harder than I did yesterday.”
“You have to go follow
your dreams,” he says is what he tells a lot of kids who ask him how to break
into the music scene.
“I never asked myself
that question,” says Perez, who always just took a leap of faith. “You have to
believe in yourself and put effort in. Anybody can do what I’ve done. Anybody.
If you know you have that ability in music, the only thing stopping you from
being successful is yourself. No matter how many times they tell you, ‘You
suck.’ Sooner or later, your dream will come true if you work hard.”
He remembers almost
giving up himself, however.
“I found myself on Miami
Beach after a major panic attack, and going behind a restaurant and kneeling on
my knees and asking God when I was going to get a chance, and God spoke to me.
He said, ‘Look, it’s up to you. How badly do you want it? If you give up, then
you lost. If you continue, there is a big reward at the end.”
Since then, Perez learned anytime he got a rejection, it didn’t mean “no” forever, it was just “no” for right now. He just continued.
“Prepare yourself like an athlete,” says Perez, who is now working on producing a gospel album with Grammy-winning soul singer Sam Moore. “That’s the same demeanor anybody should have for their career.”
