We were lucky to catch up with Reverend Doctor recently and have shared our conversation below.
Hi Reverend, thank you for being such a positive, uplifting person. We’ve noticed that so many of the successful folks we’ve had the good fortune of connecting with have high levels of optimism and so we’d love to hear about your optimism and where you think it comes from.
That’s a great question! Reverend Doctor is rooted in the concept of ‘joy as an enduring promise.’
It can be summed up in the Maya Angelou poem “I Know Why the Caged Bird Sings”; the idea that even in our darkest day there can be a song of joy in our heart worth singing.
In the Black American tradition, the stories we tell ourselves about our heroes aren’t shiny tales of victory where people live happily ever-after. The stories we tell often end with ellipsis… as the work that our heroes began becomes the listeners’ to continue. Reverend Doctor is rooted in that tradition: inherited joy intended to be shared.
I think many build their optimism by choosing to omit or obscure the tough things about the nature of life, and what it is to be human, from their view. This kind of optimism can be saccharine and hollow to folks that are looking for something to hold on to. Reverend Doctor faces the challenges head-on and speaks that same joy of the caged bird. The notion that the body can be imprisoned, but the soul can still be free.
A heart of joy is a choice, a lot like choosing gratitude when resentment may be much more natural. It is a way of showing the world that our circumstance does not decide for us. This choice is almost never easy, but it’s one we make as necessary to our survival.
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?
Reverend Doctor is a soul/pop/rock act all about using the power of music for building community and promoting self-love. Reverend: “to preach”, doctor: “to heal”, is very literal. They use storytelling and song to create a show that is more a revival than a performance; more conversation than a monologue.
During the show, the idea is to use stories from my life to create an opportunity to dance, sing, laugh, and cry through life’s disappointments and victories with topics ranging from mental health, civil disobedience, or even sexy songs to set a mood.
As a recording artist, I’m working on my first EP as Reverend Doctor with Plaid Dog Recording in Boston, MA and have an anticipated release date of mid to late 2024.
If you had to pick three qualities that are most important to develop, which three would you say matter most?
The three things that have helped me the best are to have a focus on my goal, be able to self-examine and constantly improve my weaknesses and highlight my strengths, and to have gratitude for the failures as much as the successes.
Focus is harder than it’s ever been before with social media and other acts, artists, businesses going viral in any number of ways. Looking at other people’s work with envy is nothing but a distraction. Looking at it as a student, however, can be super powerful! Asking yourself if there’s anything that you can learn to use yourself in your own career. Your path will always be uniquely yours and no one will be able to copy it, nor will you be able to copy any one else’s. But there is always more to be learned.
Self-examination is a skill where you check your ego. We’re artists because we believe what we have is great and the world needs to hear and experience it. Be able to look at your work the way others might. Be able to put yourself in your audiences’ shoes. Be able to visualize how you want your audience to feel and to work back from that point. Those skills are one-in-a-million. Self-examination takes personal clarity, confidence of vision, the ability to divorce critique from insult, and has the bonus of making you resilient to the inevitable haters that come with any degree of success. When other folks criticize me or my work it always rolls of my back because they aren’t capable of disassembling me or my work further than I have in the process of making it better.
Gratitude is a muscle to be built. Every day, every moment, every breath is an opportunity and can be met either with a heart that focuses on what you think you’re owed, or how you’ve been gifted yet another opportunity to make things different and better. A grateful heart looks at failures not as an end, but as simply one more step in the story of your journey to greatness. A heart of gratitude is resilient, buoyant, proud, and strong. It is something that others see, gravitate to, and desire to help succeed. Cynicism will never go out of fashion; earnestness is always disarming and can turn even a great enemy into an even greater ally. Practice it daily by focusing on small things to be grateful for and before you know it you will be a warrior capable of withstanding great misfortune.
Do you think it’s better to go all in on our strengths or to try to be more well-rounded by investing effort on improving areas you aren’t as strong in?
This is a wonderful question with so many wonderful angles.
This answer largely depends on the person, their strengths, weaknesses, and their personality.
For me, I am, by nature a well-rounded individual. I do a lot of things pretty well, a few things at a world-class level, and very few things poorly.
This, however, presents its own challenges. I can do most things or teach myself most skills if I have enough time and motivation to complete them. This means that if I have the resource of time, I can accomplish most things by myself, even if they aren’t skills I initially possess. The drawback to this is that we do not always have the economy of time. With every year that passes, my time becomes that much more valuable to me. I’m never quite sure if a task is something I should do because I can, or if I should delegate it and pay a professional.
As a creative there are some things that only I can do: writing songs, creating the themes or messages of Reverend Doctor, building vision and purpose. Maybe I shouldn’t also be video editor, producer, or sound engineer, even if I enjoy all of those things and continuously improve upon my skills in those areas. There comes a point where it’s more worthwhile to pay for those services than to do them myself if I have the capital to do so.
This may not be true for everyone. If you are just starting out in your career and don’t have a lot of money to pay folks that can do it better, it’s okay to do those things yourself. Becoming familiar with those skills helps you speak about them intelligently in the future. You may never become a great photographer. However, setting up photoshoots with friends to generate promotional materials for your mixtape is a great start! You may one day find yourself with a photographer for Vogue who wants to do a spread for you and wants your creative input on the vision for a hundred thousand dollar photoshoot.
Contact Info:
- Website: https://reverenddoctormusic.com
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/revdrmusic
- Facebook: https://facebook.com/revdrmusic/
- Youtube: https://www.youtube.com/channel/UC7xIeLgp-4zs7_a7d0krYIQ?view_as=subscriber
- SoundCloud: https://soundcloud.com/reverenddoctor
Image Credits
Dawn Altier
