Meet DL Edwards

We caught up with the brilliant and insightful DL Edwards a few weeks ago and have shared our conversation below.

DL, we’re thrilled to have you on our platform and we think there is so much folks can learn from you and your story. Something that matters deeply to us is living a life and leading a career filled with purpose and so let’s start by chatting about how you found your purpose.

This is a great question. I believe that purpose finds or overtakes a person. I’ve always been the class clown or merely a person that was not afraid of speaking in front of the crowd. I can distinctly remember an English teacher of mine deciding, since we can’t get him to stop singing while he’s doing his work we will give him a platform to perform in front of the class everyday for 3 mins. My purpose was born. I would prepare my musical selection the previous night ready to blow the class away. Those 3 mins put me in the head space of being in the spotlight, and this was middle school. So by the time high school rolled around I was already a superstar. At least in my own head. Now I realize that my purpose was to motivate and encourage people. So I couldn’t be scared or shy because people were waiting on me to show up and help their day or make them feel better. When people who knew me in grade school and high school see me now their testimony is exactly the same – I knew you were going to be somebody special.

Appreciate the insights and wisdom. Before we dig deeper and ask you about the skills that matter and more, maybe you can tell our readers about yourself?

I’m an up and coming contemporary jazz artist that popped onto the scene about 2 years ago. What’s ironic is, I haven’t been playing the guitar that long. A little more that five years ago my wife started a small worship band. The young musicians had all taken the instruments that I was good at playing so I went to a pawn shop and bought a $60 guitar. It was beat up and worn, but for the next solid year I played that guitar everyday for about 10 hours. It was the beginning of the pandemic and we had nothing but time on our hands. By the time I could form simple chords I was jumped into an RnB band. Yep, I was jumped in. My thoughts were never in a million years to be apart of an RnB band. But there I was learning about 12 songs a week and performing at this local bar. The crowd accepted that I was learning and tolerated all the wrong notes and chords that I played. But as time went on I was asked to join the 90s band Club Nouveau. This was Major! So about 3 years I toured the country with them playing at iconic places, opening for legendary artist like Frankie Beverly and Maze, Cameo and the list goes on. I’ll be honest I didn’t think I was good enough but I was there and I showed up to every show ready to rock the crowd. It was shortly after that I fell head over heels for smooth jazz music. George Benson, Norman Brown and Grover Washington Jr were the lullabies that rocked me to asleep and filled my every waking hour. Soon I started putting together little songs I heard in my head. Then one day a friend says to me, You should make an album! Really, you think so? I began to focus all of my attention and little knowledge of engineering and recording and got in the studio to record what is now known as Jack Of All Trades. This is my first contemporary jazz project. And that’s just the beginning. To help me get prepared for playing my own music in front of people, I would log into TikTok and go live. This would be the convergence of my purpose and my passion. Soon 2 or 3 thousand people would meet me everyday twice and day for 2 hours to hear me play online. It exploded. I could not have imagined what was happening in a thousand years. They liked it. No record label, no major contract and I was playing to a few thousand people everyday! My TikTok lives have done so well that in a matter of a month we had more than 4 million people visit our lives. What I struggled to build in person was happening online right in front of my face. I’d soon be signed to an agency that helps to push the content, asked by TikTok headquarters to perform live from their platform, and finally be walking in the purpose that I was created to do – making people’s day better! We are embarking on a promotional tour coming to a city near you so stay tuned. But recently we booked a theatre in my home town and are throwing our first live concert. It is going to be incredible. I don’t know when this will be released but the concert is June 29th 2025 in Sacramento Ca. People are coming from all over just to hear me and my band play this music that heals, uplifts and encourages.

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 thing I’ll posit is, discipline is everything. Without the concretized decision to do what you have to do, you’re merely reciting a New Year’s resolution that will soon fade by February. You have to decided one day that nothing will stop you or sway you from living or doing what you’ve been called to do. Even if it means staying up extra hours after work, or shifting other ancillary things out of your schedule to accomplish your goal. Another very important factor is, don’t talk yourself out of it. Most of the time we are our biggest and most notorious critics. Nobody can kill a dream quicker than you can. Make sure you gird yourself with the mental capacity to believe in yourself! That’s Major. Because when the rest of the world doesn’t get it yet, you have to bet on you and be there to cheer yourself on sometimes. Lastly I would say without hesitation. THE WORLD IS WAITING ON YOU. Believe it or not, there are thousands of people that have been preparing for you to step to the microphone and say what’s in your heart. Read what was on your mind or simply hear your voice on a banging track. Don’t be fooled. Your city block does not represent the scope of the planet. Somebody will love what others can’t stand. There is a place for you in this world and we have all been waiting on you to get there.

Alright so to wrap up, who deserves credit for helping you overcome challenges or build some of the essential skills you’ve needed?

There is only one person that fills these shoes with no close second behind her, my wife Porshe Edwards. She firstly is my manager, marketing agent, social media director – I mean she does it all. If it were not for her pushing me and helping me adjust and recalibrate I would be out there just looking terrible. She would say, “baby it’s time to consider more material”, or “this song sounds good do you think you can make it your own?”. She is my total inspiration . Not to say that other people haven’t attributed to who I am or what I’ve established, but hands down and right hand to God she dreams about me being great I think more than I do. I’ve loved her from the first day I met her and it’s never going to end!

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