We were lucky to catch up with Aaron Bryan Martinez recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Aaron Bryan, so happy you were able to devote some time to sharing your thoughts and wisdom with our community. So, we’ve always admired how you have seemingly never let nay-sayers or haters keep you down. Can you talk to us about how to persist despite the negative energy that so often is thrown at folks trying to do something special with their lives?
That’s a loaded question and I’ve been ready to answer it publicly for quite some time. Had you or anybody else asked me that same question at some point within the last few years, I would’ve said it’s an eye for an eye, but we’re not doing that anymore. You know what that is? Growth!!
What’s funny about my haters is that they would’ve hated me more at sixteen years old when I picked up my guitar and started writing songs. Because I stood undeterred no matter what, never at any moment in time through that journey did I think music wasn’t for me, I never thought to myself “God, this dream ain’t coming true”. On top of that it was harder for me as a kid, because there wasn’t money for music lessons. The familial priority was putting food on the table and making sure bills were paid, that was all that mattered. That put me in a place where my musicianship was constantly reduced down to a trick and a pipe dream, rather than a skill and a craft. It only made my dreams feel further away and out of my reach at times, especially being a third generation Latino from an immigrant family. Despite that, I held on because a part of me knew I had to go through the process to get to the promise. I bought chord books and put in the work; I eventually was able to pay for my own music lessons as well.
As an adult I realize I wasn’t hated back then, because I was a scraggly teenager writing songs about life as he understood it and that was non-threatening to a lot of people. But when I stepped up to the plate, released an acoustic debut album, served as a co-writer on other records and then a ghostwriter, got recognized in public multiple times and then released my last two singles…somewhere within that was when the hate started, and it came in waves. I was hitting milestones that I had dreamt of as a wide-eyed kid and at the same time the hate was pouring in, it was a very strange dichotomy. But it taught me that hate is just another method of recognition, which is now really quite obvious that they’re secretly fans of mine.
As of late the hate used to trigger me, but recent events and some over the past year taught me some valuable lessons. One being that haters are actually confused admirers, because they don’t understand how others can admire you, they think “Who does he think he is? To act the way he does? To not care at all what others think of him? To be so confident? To dress that way?”. Firstly, I’m a child of God made in His image. Period. Secondly, I stay knowing that no weapon formed against me shall prosper. I keep them talking all that ra ra, because I am that person they gotta talk about. If I wasn’t my bad self, they’d have nothing and no one to speak on. I know that at the end of the day, I’m doing them a service. If your confidence and presence doesn’t trigger nobody for nothing, baby you ain’t doing it right. The thing about being talked about, is that nobody talks about you until you move on purpose for your purpose.
The day that you decide to be about your purpose, it will manifest things in people that you wouldn’t even believe, the spite, the dirt and the envy. Over time you slowly and surely become a target and that comes with the territory of pursuing your purpose and knowing it’s been anointed by God. It took me a very long time to fully understand and accept the fact that I was a target, because I didn’t ask to become one nor had I ever wanted that for myself. But I learned that you can’t set out to make your dreams happen, you can’t set out to change an industry and you can’t set out to reach something that’s beyond your currency capacity – without becoming a target, you’re asking for the impossible.
What you’ll also find at some point in the process of your purpose is that your biggest hater is in your circle and it’s never the one you expect, but don’t be afraid to cut that person off. I know it’s hard, especially when it’s someone you’ve been riding with for years. I had to cut people off, let them go and let God. But it showed me that people don’t know how hard you’ve been riding for them, until you park. It’s never easy, but my fervent prayer to God has become regimental in moments like those.
I say “Lord, while you’re changing my mind, change their minds as well. Make people who ain’t really about me, start saying things like ‘he’s too busy at the gym’, ‘he too busy working on his music’, ‘he too busy working on his purpose’, ‘he’s not fun anymore’ and enable them say that God and help me not feel the pain from that. Because if they can’t connect to where I’m going, we might as well end it. Only You know the plans you have for me and if they don’t fit in that plan, it’s a wrap.” I asked for that on a few occasions, but I wasn’t ready for what would happen next. It was a cleansing of my life in general and particularly people in my life, it shook me to my core and I felt alone during that time.
In my mind there are seasons of life that God put us through, for me that was a season of separation and isolation. It felt very lonely, but I realized that I wasn’t alone, I had actually been separated. To try to construct the concept in my mind, God separates us for three reasons. To hone the skills necessary for your God given dream, to train you to know His voice when there are too many of them, and lastly to make us unrecognizable to those that only knew us by the old versions of ourselves. It taught me that when you choose transformation you have to withstand isolation, because transformation cannot happen with company.
At the time, I didn’t realize I got what I asked for and there’s no way I would’ve known otherwise. I remember asking God why did this happen? I thought they were my ride or die till the end? I wanted to be removed from the situations that I prayed for, because they didn’t come in the way I wanted them to. As I was going through the storm, it hit me that I was leveling up in the process and I knew in that moment that God can still bless you in the middle of the storm. What I took from that was that if God doesn’t take you out of it, He intends to lead you through it. If He doesn’t stop the attacks, doesn’t stop the thunderstorm and doesn’t stop the drought…it doesn’t mean He’s not there and it doesn’t mean He doesn’t have the power to do those things. It means if you can survive it, He can redeem it
When those that fell off didn’t celebrate my milestones when they knew about them, it crushed me. I realized that they treated me that way because God wanted me to see who they were and wanted me to see the truth that would set me free. What I learned was that they preferred me when I wasn’t as confident, they preferred me when I didn’t have boundaries, they preferred me when I didn’t say no and they preferred me when I showed up for them every single time. But when I started saying no, standing my ground, not backing down and started showing up for myself – that’s when we had issues. I know people reading this are probably thinking “Oh he’s out here acting like he’s full of himself and above it all.” Yeah, you’re right, my cup overfloweth! So about that nay saying opinion you got? Take that to God. Because it ain’t really shade, it’s lowkey jealousy and hostility. Baby, go heal that.
I’m not better than anyone, I just don’t have to put up with anything, I don’t have to dim my shine, I don’t have to discount myself for anyone to access me and I don’t have to do any of that anymore. If I have to lessen myself to maintain the friendship, then you need to grow up or we need to let this thing go. Above all else I know it’s painful to cut people off, but it raises your standards. My bar was in hell, because I was raised in a white-affluent Latin home and was birthed by an emotionally distant father and a mother that ultimately decided she didn’t want her gay son. The culmination of my childhood trauma, put that little brown boy in for a world of hurt.
I went out into the world naively thinking everybody was my friend and that they always had good intentions, because I wanted a sense of kinship. I got into friendships with people that didn’t care about me. I got into relationships with white men that only saw a Latino fetish brought to life, a fantasy, because my internalized colorism and racism told me I needed a man with eurocentric features to affirm my beauty. What I learned from that was that I couldn’t manifest genuinely good people into my life, until I began to heal that internalized trauma. Healing opens up those wounds and allows the light in, because after all of that I know I am worthy of love and a real sense of community. I can now confidently say that I’m a beautifully melanated and dark featured Native / Mesoamerican Latino and I wouldn’t trade my dark hair and brown skin for the world. I don’t need affirmations from anyone or from the world for that matter. On this healing journey I collected quotes and two of them stuck. One was Psalms 27:10 “though my father and mother have forsaken me, the Lord has received me” and the second one was on Pinterest and it said “the Sun loved me so much, it kissed me forever” and I remember crying for what felt like forever. I’ll keep that quote with me forever and wherever I go.
As of late I only allow people in my life that add intentional value and vice versa. The handful of people in my circle know we can get lit, but we also feed each other spiritually. We laugh together, we ride together and cry together. We ain’t just in each other’s lives to clock-in and clock-out. I can only count my circle on one hand and I intend to keep it that way. I know now that we’ve been anointed by God to be in each other’s lives, because I prayed to God to bring them forward. I knew they would come; I just didn’t know who they’d be or what they’d remotely look like. It taught me that before God gives you the vision, He already made provisions. He knew we would wind up together, even before we were formed in our mothers’ wombs and He knew us then. I just had to trust the process, because everything is made beautiful in its time. When we can only see the seed, God can see the harvest!
I’m sharing everything I’ve learned so far on my journey of dealing with haters and naysayers, because at times I wish someone had told me about all these lessons that I learned the hard way. So if you’re the first creative in your family that’s hellbent on making a living from your art, if you’re the first in your family to break a generational curse, if you’re the first in your family to get that college degree, the first of many things, to be the first you also have to be the bravest and the best. You’re the prototype, that’s why it’s only you and the weight is on you, because you can carry it. The weight will feel too heavy at times, but that’s how it’s supposed to feel when you’re going towards the promise and the vision. It has to be a burden to a degree and once you accept that, you’ll be able to catch wisdom off of it.
God wouldn’t have put that dream in you, if He didn’t want you to show the people that the mustard seed of faith can indeed move the mountain and that you could be the change. It’s your time to be the generational breakthrough, the generational healing and the new generational way of being. We’re going to rebuke the statistics that say we ain’t supposed to make it out the hood, out of the marginalized pockets of society that we’ve been placed in.
You’ve got to know that being about your purpose, means it’s greater than you. You’re putting in that work, because you won’t let your family start from scratch. You’re putting that faith, so that your child won’t be lost in this world. You’re on your journey, because you will be the first to break that generational curse. I know it’s hard, because it didn’t start with you. But hear me and hear me well, it can start with you and it will multiply with you. I don’t know what you’re dealing with, but you gotta be the Dolores Huerta of your generation, the Selena Quintanilla of your community, and the Alexandria Ocasio-Cortez of your family. Because you weren’t meant to fit into that glass slipper, you were meant to shatter glass ceilings. Trust me when I say it feels intimidating and scary, but God says “No, I command you to be in those rooms, to shatter those glass ceilings and to work your way through those obstacles”.
You might be thinking “A.B., this dream is scary, how can I do it? I don’t have the resources, I don’t have the answers, I don’t have the financial backing. I don’t have your confidence…” Please know that the path the Lord has called you to, He will be with you and He’ll see you through. It’s not about trying to prove others wrong, because sometimes we miss that mark. It’s about knowing that the path is different from those that have come before you, you’re going to take the road less traveled by because you don’t have a choice. I know that dream scares you, it scared me too and still scares me sometimes. But I can tell you as a witness to God’s power, He’s going to be with you every step of the way.
Once you step into your purpose and walk with God in divine favor, the hate will come. I wish I could tell you that being about your purpose would be a walk in the park, but it’s not. I didn’t understand why, until I realized that God doesn’t do what’s easy. He does what’s divine. When you’re out there doing the damn thing, you doing so will manifest the nasty in the people around you and it may show up as your presence making them uncomfortable. Note this next part, because their comfort is not your responsibility. It might be that one of them has the connections you need to fulfill your purpose, they might have the likes, the followers, the finances, the streams and the clout, etc. So I know what it feels like when you don’t have what they have, but I’m here to say that you don’t have to have the numbers in your favor to win. When it feels like the statistics are against you, the numbers are against you, the data is against you…let me remind you that God doesn’t count like men, He is the Equalizer. If you can be faithful over a few things, He’ll make you the ruler of many.
You don’t have to have the favor of anybody, when you have the favor of God. I’ve learned not to get all wound up when people with platforms, record labels, talent management, line up curators…speak negatively of me or reject me. I couldn’t care less about how well connected they are or the social media capital that they have. Because I’ve seen too many times when God placed my name in rooms that I didn’t know how to get myself into, with people that I didn’t even know were looking for me. I’ve stopped being concerned about positioning myself, because I know now that God is in the business of positioning.
Whatever your path is and wherever you’re positioned, don’t allow the game, don’t allow the perspectives and opinions of others to take away what started between you and God. Don’t allow whether or not they can accept it or acknowledge it, to authorize whether or not you can do it. Don’t allow any disappointment in yourself, to make you forget the dream that God promised you. If you’re wondering why you’re able to see the vision, but not how to get there? It’s because God shows us the vision of the promise, to get us through the process. If God showed you the path step by step, you wouldn’t need faith. I know we want all the answers sometimes, because that’s the easier way to go about it. But God will show you how it’s going to happen, when you start moving and when you go without answers. He will order your steps along the way. It will be confusing at times as you’re on your journey and dealing with the hate at the same time, but confusion doesn’t have to be the end all. If you’ll just move, He’ll help you figure it out and don’t worry about if it’s the wrong step, if it is? He will move the dirt beneath your feet to pivot you in the right direction.
I promise you when you’re about your purpose and in it to win it, everything will work out to your blessing and benefit. All you gotta do is ask, believe and receive. If you’re wondering why the haters ain’t got problems going on like the way they’re attacking you? It’s because the enemy don’t mess with nobody that got nothing to offer. So keep doing you baby, your story is loading.
Let’s take a small detour – maybe you can share a bit about yourself before we dive back into some of the other questions we had for you?
My name is Aaron Bryan Martinez and I’m originally from Edinburg, Texas, but currently reside in Dallas. I’ve been in music my entire life and the earliest musical memory I carry with me, is when I was in first grade at De La Vina Elementary School. I was pulled into the music room with a group of students that were selected to audition for the Music Memory Team. It was a team that had to memorize classical music compositions, then recall the name of each corresponding piece and the composer at UIL competitions by the snippets that were played. To be quite honest I didn’t take memorizing the music very seriously and only as seriously as a six year old could, but somehow I made the team. I had only listened to the tapes a few times, whereas I remember the kids in my class saying they listened to theirs over a hundred times. I didn’t dare say that I listened to my tapes a few times, because I thought I had done something wrong. I remember my music teacher, Mrs. Guerra asked me how many times I had listened to the tapes? I hesitantly answered her “Only a few times…” and I was scared of what she’d say, but her blue eyes widened in a look of bewilderment and in awe of what I had done and how I had achieved it. I thought I was in trouble, but looking back now that was definitely indicative that I’d grow up to be a full fledged musician and she whole-heartedly recognized it at that moment. If you’re reading this Mrs.Guerra, that moment will live with me forever and it completely changed the trajectory of my life. I had no clue of the gift that I had inside of me at that time, but you saw it back then. I can’t explain how much I appreciate that moment looking back, I know that was God speaking through you to a little brown wide-eyed boy that would eventually come to realize his gift too.
I went on to eventually pick-up a guitar in my young teenage years and piano after that, which I taught myself both. I then enrolled in a music academy where I learned how to properly sing and play piano. I spent time playing local coffee shops and local events, then sometime after that I entered my first local talent competition at the Cine El Rey theater in McAllen, Texas. I was nervous as heck, so I sat in the front tuning my guitar, practicing my lyrics under my breath and moving my chord progressions along with them to calm my nerves. I didn’t get past the preliminary round, but after I got done playing my song, the other competitors and their parents came up to me and said things like “That was amazing, you’re going to be famous one day!” and “Wow, that was incredible!”. I was surprised, because they even asked for pictures and autographs. At the end of the competition the winner asked me if she could sing my songs, but I politely declined.
Fast forward to me moving to Dallas in 2012, I had the big wide city all to myself. I played at open mic nights in Deep Ellum and quickly learned that music wasn’t going to pay the bills, so I stopped doing that altogether. After that I began doing karaoke at local spots to build my stage presence and I kept writing songs, then a breakthrough came from a place I didn’t expect. I had already come out to my mom at this point and one day she called me in tears saying “What am I supposed to say when they ask about you? My co-workers, our friends and family…they ask about you and I don’t know what to say, I go to the bathroom and I cry…I’m embarrassed and I’m ashamed of you!!”. I responded in tears by telling her to tell them that I was living in Dallas and going to school, because that’s what I was actually doing and about me being gay? I didn’t see how that had to even be a part of the conversation, if she didn’t want it to.
I sat down with my guitar that night in tears remembering the conversation and strummed the first chord. I didn’t know if I could write anything down, so I let go of all my inhibitions and tried anyway. The first verse came out in one shot “tell them you don’t love me anymore / things just can’t be like the way they were before / tell them all the words you said / that sometimes things just have to end / if they ever start to wonder / just say that I changed my number”. I was in shambles, but I kept going, that’s when the second verse came “tell them that I’m chasing a pipe dream / that I’m somewhere in Tennessee / tell them that I’m chasing a neon rainbow / going wherever the dreamers go / if they ever start to ask / just say that I left and never turned back”. At that point I knew the place I called home didn’t exist anymore and the bridge was written “tell them that home ain’t always where the heart is / tell them you left me alone in all of this / and give yourself one last kiss”. I thought “what am I ultimately wanting to say to her?” and the chorus came out of that “tell them i’m a ramblin’ man, a gypsy soul / there ain’t no hand, that was ever really mine to hold / tell them i’m a ramblin’ man on an open road / there ain’t no hand that was ever really mine to hold”. At the end I realized it was a broken hearted letter to her of all the things I couldn’t say on the phone, but it went on to become more than that. The next day I uploaded it to SoundCloud titled “Ramblin Man (Tell Them)” and almost overnight it capped at a hundred downloads, and plays slowly started coming in. I got messages from random people saying how much they loved my song and from that point on I just kept writing. I went on to release my acoustic folk-pop debut album “Southern Comfort” in 2020, then COVID happened and venues across the country shut down. What happened within the following years was going to change the trajectory of my career and I had no idea what was coming, but more on that later.
So now a little bit more about me as of late, I was formerly known as the singer/songwriter “Aaron Bryan” and now known as “A.B” the bilingual rapper. I am a singer / songwriter / recording artist / multi-instrumentalist and multi-genre lyricist. It was quite the journey to cross genres, there’s more about how that transition came to be further in this interview. So stay tuned! I think what’s most special about my rap music is that I intentionally incorporate Spanish, English and Tex-Mex colloquialisms into my lyrics, while also serving the English-speaking audience as well. I had planned for my next single to have been out by now, but life happened and there’s more of that story further on, so keep reading!
There is so much advice out there about all the different skills and qualities folks need to develop in order to succeed in today’s highly competitive environment and often it can feel overwhelming. So, if we had to break it down to just the three that matter most, which three skills or qualities would you focus on?
The first would definitely be taking the circumstances and realizing that they’re opportunities to level up. The saying goes “new levels, new devils”, because it’s true. The journey that led me here was full of peaks and valleys. When I was at peaks I would celebrate, when I was in the valleys I would panic and stress out. It taught me that miracles don’t come to be at the peaks, they’re built from the valleys. Because where we see circumstances, God sees opportunity. I approach circumstances in a different way now, I pray about them and I talk to God.
I say “God, if you put me in this circumstance knowing that this is actually an opportunity, then there must be more to me than I think there is. So help me tap into the more, I must have more creativity than I thought I had, I must have more intellect than I thought I had and I must have more than my current capacity has allowed. Most would’ve given up by now, but God you placed more in me and before I falter I need to ask what is the more?” When you start asking God for more, your Spirit opens up, and at that moment…God knows he can give you what you’ve been needing; because it’s greater than what you’ve been wanting. He can finally let you see what He’s always known of you and show you what He’s been thinking about you.
I’m not saying those circumstances and opportunities don’t bring up those real feelings and thoughts of doubt, worry, depression and anxiousness, because they definitely do. I’m saying you need to mute those dark moments and those dark spirits, you gotta stop talking about them and stop second guessing yourself. Why? Because you’re speaking your fears into a season that only requires your faith and if you start letting them speak while God is working, you’ll miss out on what God is doing. Again I’m not saying those dark moments aren’t real, I’m saying God’s got more. There’s more of God in you than there is the spirit of doubt, than there is the spirit of worry, than there is the spirit of depression and the spirit of anxiousness. I know I say that no weapon formed against me shall prosper, but sometimes we’re carrying the enemy’s sword in one hand and our own shield in the other.
Another circumstance you’ll find yourself in when you’re on your journey and about your purpose, is that life happens and it happens hard. It feels like disruption, but don’t let it become a distraction. There were times on my journey and more so recently, I hit rock bottom and life happened to me. It came out of nowhere and hit me like a freight train. I didn’t understand how life could’ve happened when I was about my purpose and walking with God. I remember thinking “God, I can’t go no lower than this…” and I cried. I then heard the Spirit speak to me and it said “That’s great, because now at your lowest point is when we can begin to build the deepest depths of your new foundation and I’m going to add more to your purpose, but I can’t add that weight to a fragile version of you. I can only add that weight to the most disconcerted and the most crushed version of who you are. The deeper you’ve been broken, the greater your foundation will be…” I remember thinking “Why do you need a greater foundation? I’ve put in the work and I’ve kept the faith” and it hit my spirit as it said “Because there are new greater heights connected to your name”.
On the way to those heights, doors slammed in my face. I used to feel discouraged by the closed doors and only thanked God for the doors that were opened, but as of late I’ve also been thanking God for the doors that He closed. Speaking of that, this is the first time I’m making it publicly known that I had three independent record labels court me to be signed to their roster after ‘Intro’ and ‘NOISE’ were released. I paid hefty lawyer fees to make sure I wasn’t getting the short end of the stick, but all three deals fell through around the same time and it really crushed me. But a friend said to me as I was crying “Would you rather have signed one of those deals and then be in court years from now battling it out with your record label or know now that the right deal is still out there for you? If anything, they’ve affirmed the talent that’s in you. I’ve always known that you’re a star and soon it’ll be the world’s turn to find out”. I cried back then, but now I thank God for those doors that didn’t work out and the opportunities that were behind them, because they weren’t meant for me and were never going to be a part of my journey. In those moments of desperation, I was open to every door, but God didn’t give me everything I was open for and now I see why.
It has become a deeper conversation with God of “I thought I needed to fill that vacancy, but you were trying to build that entrepreneurial spirit in me. I thought I needed that deal, but you’ve been trying to build the leverage I need for when the right deal comes my way. I thought I needed that relationship, but you were trying to break the generational curse off of my life.” You see our plans are not His plans and our ways are not His ways, God only disappoints you so that He can set you up. As you’re turning these circumstances into opportunities, I’m going to need you to be okay with not everyone understanding the path that God has called you to. It might just be you and God for a while, but soon enough everyone will see what God saw. But the bigger thing here is will you be okay if nobody knows it in the interim, but you and God? I can’t answer that question for you, but I encourage you to write it down and pray about it.
Second, I would say to educate yourself on your position, on your path and on your purpose. If you are thinking “A.B. I ain’t got the money for that class, for that book, for that online course…I don’t have the ‘how to’ to get there”, nobody said nothing about you spending money on anything. The hardest part is your purpose is always the beginning and making that first step. The ‘how’ will work itself out and your only job is to keep the faith and put in the work, that’s it. What does putting in the work mean? Let’s say you want to start a business, start a vision board, start manifesting it, envision it and then put in the work. My idea of what that work looks like is (which might be different from yours) to choose one or two days a week and set time aside to be about it and be about nothing else.
Get on YouTube and watch videos about starting a business, find those in the industry that you’ll break into and read any and all materials they got out there about what they did to open and run that business. Start going to free public fairs where small businesses set up their vendor tents and start networking, buy their products and use that moment to build those connections. Go to the library or a used bookstore and find books about starting a business. Take notes, make notes and become the notes! One thing about putting in the work is that when you love it, you keep doing it and doing it. Then at some point, God notices, He intervenes and comes down on you like a strike of lightning and that’s when you’ve got to rise up to the occasion.
I promise you that your opportunity to rise up will come, but I’ve learned a lesson that really taught me what it means to rise up. I used to pray to God to give me that table and that chair to pull up to record labels. As you can probably predict, those prayers didn’t work back then. It really and truly taught me that God doesn’t make tables or chairs, He only makes trees. I’m not saying you should pray until you see some carpentry style furniture, because God ain’t the Ikea Deity. I’m saying pray to God to show you your tree, so that you can build your own table and chair, so that you can know what to do with what you got and build your own place of being amongst your industry.
I got to that moment, because when life happened it slammed me financially and took a huge budgetary chunk out of my funds that would normally have gone towards studio time for my third single. I had and still have my third single’s demo finished and ready to go, but life happened and delays on delays came and stood as a part of the process. It was frustrating me, but I remembered that fervent prayer about circumstances and opportunities. So I asked God “What is my tree? What is the more? Please help me tap into it.” I thought to myself “the people know I’m a star with my music, but what’s behind the music?” I knew my music was fire, but I realized at that moment it was actually my smile and my charismatic personality that the people needed to know about and see on video, because that’s the real star, the supernova. It was something I hadn’t ever thought to showcase before, to share my behind the scene moments, my creative processes and more about my music. I thought, “How the hell am I supposed to do that?” At that moment, I turned to filming myself and posting that content as reels on Instagram. I thought I’d be lucky if anyone watched, but each video has gotten 100’s of plays, which I wasn’t expecting. In addition, my DM’s blew up and the people started watching my reels. It was a huge sense of relief to put out content and to put out something while the people have been patiently waiting for my next single.
Thirdly, in this social media world we live in, what does it mean to ‘go viral’ ? I’m not here to talk about those that went viral. I’m talking about those that want to go viral, but haven’t. I know what that feels like, because I used to religiously ask God to make me go viral. I didn’t understand why it didn’t happen, but then I realized it’s because my gift wasn’t like the others. In the sense that it wasn’t microwavable and a quick win. He has allowed my gift to marinate through the work, through the faith and through the process and He put something in me that is too great to be achieved quickly. My gift needs to go through the process in order to be as long lasting as I’m desiring it to be and knowing that has made the process easier to go through.
Because to be exposed too soon is not a blessing, it’s a curse. You don’t want anything before it’s due, there’s a time and a place for every purpose under Heaven. You don’t want to be exposed to crowds too soon, without the process that transforms you to be ready for that moment. I know at times it feels like punishment, but it’s actually preparation. He hides you in obscurity, because of how valuable you are and the priceless cost of who you will become. When you’re strong enough to withstand everything that you’ll be exposed to is when you’ll be revealed. As for now, there’s still work that He’s doing in you.
I’ve had my thoughts on ‘going viral’ for a long time, I’ve always known that the followers, the likes, the clicks, the plays, etc. Were not indicative of longevity and success in the music industry, but for a long time record labels wanted an artist to have all those numbers lined up already and that had to be before the deal came, but they’ve recently realized that their new method of scouting talent has killed the tradition of artist development. For a while there, labels preferred to sign artists with pre-existing fan bases rather than putting in that work, time, energy and money into building an obscure artist from the ground up. They were risk-averse and avoided investing their own money to build the superstars like we used to know them and they preferred someone that already had it ‘going on’. It also appears to me that as consumers, too many people mistake viral sensations for musical talent and that lends to labels signing songs, not artists. I can’t lie to you, it used to bother me to see the song being signed and the artist is never heard from again and I wondered where in the hell my breakthrough was…?
I turned to God in those moments and it changed me for the better. I now don’t pray to go viral or pray to be the next tiktok sensation. Because when I prayed for those things back then, I was boxing God in to answer my prayers in a particular way. It took me a long time to learn that when we do that, we don’t reduce God, but we reduce our experience of Him. I’ve learned to talk to God and then close out my prayer with “this is what I’d like to see, here’s how I’d like to see you move…” but at the end I say “God, do it or do something better”. It took me a very long time to get to that understanding of what prayer to God truly means, but it feels right on time.
It took me a long time to get there, because of what I’ve tried to do and what you have probably tried to do as well is to water Him down. We do so, so that His ways match our ways, so that His thoughts match our thoughts and so that He can answer our requests the way we submitted them. We want the answer that works out in the constructs of our mind to be the solution that will be the most optimal, given the circumstances that we see and the prayers that we have prayed. But sometimes when we pray for growth, it brings forth a thunderstorm. Sometimes when we pray for change, it brings forth a drought. Sometimes we pray for a tree, we are given seed. Sometimes we pray to see our faith in action, we get a mountain to climb. You can’t ask God to bless you and then tell him how to do it.
Now let’s say you already got this part down or you’ve been praying in your own way, but it feels like the way you’ve been doing it ain’t working anymore. No matter how hard you try, it feels like God ain’t showing up, but what that really means is that He’s doing a new thing – can’t you see it? Sometimes we can’t see the new thing that God is doing, because we expect him to show up in a way that we want to understand it. It’s not that we ain’t ever heard of that new thing, it’s that you didn’t expect God to pull up in that way.
This opened up a new part of how I make decisions about my music and my career, all those years of asking God to go viral, for that table, for that chair, for that record deal, to move the way I wanted Him to, sending my music to a bunch of labels accepting open submissions…I was making those decisions from my desperation, not from my talent. I made those decisions, because I didn’t have money, I didn’t have clout, I didn’t have the recognition I’ve been getting and I didn’t have the confidence I have today. I denied those things to myself, because I didn’t know the language of what those things were. But I now know that God kept calling me anyway, because He knew that I had the heart to do it, and God was more interested in my heart than He was in my language. I had to learn that I had it in my heart first, before God would’ve allowed me to have learned the language.
I was making those decisions from what I didn’t have, whereas today I make decisions from what I do have, from the tree I turned into a table and chair and from the equipment that God gave me to be out on the front lines battling the waves of hate. I’ve been making decisions from what is in front of me and in my wheelhouse. I knew back then that I was called by my purpose, but I didn’t trust the equipment God gave me. I had to stop looking at the equipment and tools other people had, and I had to learn to utilize the gear that I was provided. God wouldn’t have given me this gift and this dream, if I didn’t have the equipment to bring it to fruition.
I now look at my gifts, my talent and my equipment and I’ve put into practice speaking prophecies over them. Such as speaking wisdom over my gifts, speaking faith over my talent, speaking growth over my equipment, speaking execution over my vision and speaking power over my abilities. Because that’s all that I have right now and I know that it will develop me and grow me into the plan God has for me, so I can face the burning stage lights at AT&T Stadium here in Dallas, Texas.
Speaking these prophecies has scared me before, but I trust God is with me and will be with me in the next chapter of my journey. When I step into that chapter, I know it will feel like unfamiliar territory and uncharted waters, but one thing that will be familiar is the work that led me to that moment and the power of God that mapped it out for me as I moved with faith to get there. I know that in the next chapters of my journey there will be heartache, loss, betrayal, monsters, and bigger battles are waiting for me, but this time it will be different. Because who I’ve become in knowing that God is with me and will be with me every step of the way, I’m the readiest I’ve ever been.
What’s been one of your main areas of growth this year?
This is the part where I can finally explain to the people how the move came about from ‘Aaron Bryan the Country Pop Singer/Songwriter’ to ‘A.B. the Bilingual Rapper’. It all kind of started when I was writing songs for what would’ve been my sophomore album. I kept feeling like I was getting boxed in, because in country music you have to fit into a box and you can’t draw outside the lines. You can’t speak your mind and you can’t say what you want to say or you’ll face backlash. Anyone that knows me personally knows that is 100% not me, I speak my mind, I say what I want to say and I don’t care what anybody thinks.
So I thought, what about rap? Because I knew that it was that one genre where you can say things with your chest and it’ll be celebrated amongst your peers. I started to play with the idea and kept a ton of bars in my phone, which l didn’t know at the time would later become my debut rap single “Intro”, so I kept them to myself and didn’t show anyone. Around this time a recording artist reached out to me and said he was blown away with the lyricism on my debut album and he wanted to make solo records, but he didn’t have the lyrical finesse that I possessed and asked me to co-write the records with him. I was hesitant at first, but eventually warmed up to the idea. I showed up to the writing session with a cold brew in one hand and my guitar in the other, I was ready to work. To my surprise we weren’t going to go through the traditional songwriting method that I was raised on, we were going to write to track. It scared me at first, but I thought to myself “…if Taylor can do this, so can I”.
The best way I can describe my method of how I wrote to tracks over that period of time was, I would let the track play and then I’d close my eyes. I would let my imagination run wild and let it run pictures in my mind of what the track was telling me, almost like an old film reel, except the images and visuals were brought forth by the track. That method worked and we wrote two records like that and I eventually went on to become a ghostwriter as well.
The part that crushed me was when our partnership went south, my credits were removed from one of the records that we wrote and I was paid a small amount that was nowhere near the amount of work and hours I put into that record. For about a week I cried myself to sleep a few nights, it was a pain unlike anything that I hadn’t ever felt before. To have put all my creative energy into a work of art and then have it taken from me? I had a hard time falling asleep at night, because I was kept awake by my robbed lullabies. I remember falling asleep only to find that the melodies were waiting for me and haunted me in my dreams. It really felt like there was no escaping it, there was no saving grace for me or for any of it. I would go from sad to angry in a split second, then move back and forth instantaneously and wanted to scream at the sky. I had to be the bad guy, while he wore the cape flying around saving face. He kept the jewels that I gave him, as our partnership was in the wind and that part of me withered away.
I was angry for a long time, I thought to myself “Does my voice ring in your head with lyrical ideas or does it say f___k you forever?”. I wanted to lash out like a wounded animal, I felt like a trap had been set and I walked right into it. I was ready to strike to kill against my own will and my claws came out, but a noose had already been wrapped around me. His friends turned on me too, it was obvious that wanting me out was what brought them together.
What I didn’t know was that my tears were going to ricochet and he’d catch a stray. I was dead to that part of my journey, but he was there at the wake throwing dirt on my name and wishing he hadn’t preyed on me. He had to kill me off, but it killed him just the same as he was probably wishing things had been different. It felt like he took everything from me, as I stood there knowing he was performing those songs publicly and I wasn’t being compensated, nor credited.
It’s not a big secret that all of those songs we wrote together are still being performed publicly and I have yet to receive any type of monetary compensation or royalties. Which isn’t the point, it’s the fact that the whole ordeal taught me exactly what Nipsey Hussle said all the time the game is gonna test you, never fold, stay ten toes down. It’s not on you, it’s in you and what’s in you they can’t take away”. I’ve made peace with the fact that my art is in a place where I can’t reach it and that I don’t have the ability to hold it, but I have me and with that I know I’ll be fine. Because I didn’t realize God was going to turn that ordeal around and pull out the blessing from within it.
After that chapter closed, I turned to the bars that I had been building on my phone. I kept adding and adding and adding to them. I began to really love the idea of rap, but I also knew that if I was going to do this, then I had to have something to offer that no other mainstream rappers had been giving to the people. That’s when it hit me that I could use my bilingual brain to seamlessly switch between English and Spanish as I was rapping, so I started writing bars in Spanish that rhymed with the following bar whether it was in English or in Spanish.
I eventually found a beat that I loved and repeated my creative process I had initially used when I wrote to track for the first time. I closed my eyes and listened to it. I could see the vision. I could see a crowd made of the Latino community and they were holding up their respective flags of their countries, I could see them all looking like me and they saw themselves reflected in me. For that brief moment, it was like nothing I had ever seen or felt before. I just had this feeling that my dreams were the same dreams of all those people that were looking at me, like all of their hope was on me and I was lucky enough to carry it. I opened my eyes and tears streamed down my face. I knew that beat was the one. I started working on the demo and showed the rough draft to my roommate at the time and he was blown away and word for word he said “Yoooo, that was fire!!! I know you love doing that singer/songwriter stuff and I love that stuff, but this rap music, this is where you belong!”. If you’re wondering, that vision became my debut rap single ‘Intro’. I knew it had to be about being Latino, being proud of my heritage and the place that I came from.
Fast forward after I released “Intro” and “NOISE”, I was finally getting the recognition from my community that I had longed for, for a very long time. I didn’t understand why it was happening now and not before, then it hit me. I had all along been chasing ‘white success’, I hadn’t been doing it for my people, I was doing it for the people that marginalized me and for them to recognize me as an equal. To be honest my mom suggested for me to do mariachi and do music in Spanish, but at the time I didn’t think it was cool and I realize now my stance came from the internalized racism that lived within me. It wasn’t cool to make music in Spanish, because that wasn’t mainstream music at the time. At the time it was white talent all over each and every red carpet, I wanted to be like them.
But releasing my two rap singles, showed me that when you do your purpose for the people and by the people, they’ll raise you up. They’ll place their hopes and dreams in you, to see one of their own winning para todos is exactly what they’ve been wanting. The move to becoming a bilingual rapper taught me that you gotta be exactly who you are to make it in the big leagues and the entire time before that I was trying to be someone else. It was me, but it wasn’t the me I am today. My dad loved the music that I had released prior, but after I released ‘Intro’, he called me one night and said “Mijo, I loved it. You remind me so much of Selena” I said “What do you mean? I didn’t make this record in Spanish.” He said “No mijo, not that. You’re like Selena, because you’re making music in English and Spanish. You’re letting them know exactly who you are, that you’re a Mexican-American artist and that you’re proud of it. I said to my friends ‘that’s my son doing that, that’s my Selena’”. I cried hysterically on the phone for what felt like forever and he said “Now hurry up and get famous mijo, so I can retire. F__k this job!”.
With my two singles out, it recently came to me that I can be a songwriter and a rapper, for some strange reason I thought they couldn’t co-exist. I saw them as two separate entities of creativity, but I eventually learned to merge them. The best way I can describe what it feels like from a creative standpoint is that one side of me is Taylor Swift-esque, sweet, nice and unassuming and a lover of words, meanwhile the other half is a Bilingual Megan thee Stallion type that’s cocky, confident and loves talking mad s___t on my records. To me it feels like getting lost in Taylor’s Folklorian Forest and then going bar for bar with Megan, but somehow knowing they’re besties in my mind. If I could thank them in person, I 100% would.
But before them, there was Selena. I know she was everything to everyone, but for Mexican-Americans living in Texas she truly was and still is our Texan Tejano Queen. As a little boy for the first time in my life I had finally seen somebody that looked like me, was Mexican-American like me and was doing the damn thing. Seeing her on stage confirmed exactly what I knew I was supposed to be doing with my life, she set a fire in me. My parents didn’t teach me how to dream, Selena did. She broke down barriers where only men could thrive and did it by showing the world that she was a Mexican-American and she was proud of it. What’s ironic is that as a child she hated the idea of making music in Spanish too, but that was the key that unraveled the beginning of her journey to stardom.
I remember at seven years old on the way home after watching ‘Selena’, I looked up at the moon and I started dreaming. I closed my eyes and I could see it all. I asked my mom “Mami?” she said “Yes, mijo?”, I responded “How do I get on the radio? Like how do I make music to be on there?” She responded with “I don’t know mijo, why are you asking?”, I said “Because I’ll be on the radio one day, I don’t know how, but I will be.”. I thought if Selena could look up at the moon and dream, somehow she made it happen, then maybe, just maybe if I believed hard enough and tried hard enough, I could do it too. As of today, my rap singles have been played in eighteen different countries, with the top five being the United States, Mexico, Australia, Luxembourg and Taiwan. It still blows my mind when I think about it, it’s crazy and well deserved.
I didn’t expect any of the lessons I shared with you to be a part of my journey, but I’m glad they were. Some people have asked me “A.B. how are you so confident in yourself?” Baby when I tell you it was the journey, I thank God for the journey every day!! This journey had trials and tribulations that broke me down, but God never left me. The journey showed me who my real friends were and got rid of the fake ones, it got rid of the ones that weren’t for me. The journey showed me that my purpose was greater than the insurmountable obstacles and the heartache I faced, especially at times when the only thing I could do was put one foot in front of the other.
I know that not everybody believes in a higher power, but I’m not here to shove anything down your throats. Instead I challenge you to take a deep dive in the fact that science and logic only go so far, then comes faith and the power of God. I’ve learned not to personally share my vision with someone that only believes in their human power, because they historically have filtered my possibilities through their limitations. So God Bless y’all, for real.
In closing I want to thank the fans and the people for patiently waiting for my next single, while I’m out here racking up the funds to be able to get back in the studio again. For now, check out my social media pages to keep up with my BTS reels and my goofy self.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://distrokid.com/hyperfollow/ab70/noise
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/bryanaaron/
- Facebook: https://www.facebook.com/aaronbryanmz
- Twitter: https://twitter.com/bryan_aaron
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/bryanaaron
Image Credits
Performance Photo by The Dallas Digithon / 24HOURDALLAS Urban Photos by Ashley Gongora Studio Photos by Aaron B. Martinez
