Latest / Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews / Tenroc Was Driving a Church Van When God Told Him to Make an Album

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Tenroc Was Driving a Church Van When God Told Him to Make an Album · Crosswalk Talk: Celebrity Christian Interviews

• 0:02
  Speaker 1: Life Audio.
• 0:04
  Speaker 2: Hey, Tin Rock, thanks for joining me. What's going on?
• 0:06
  Speaker 2: Thank you for having me.
• 0:08
  Speaker 3: Grammy nominated Singer, Songwriter producer ten Rock is our guest today.
• 0:13
  Speaker 3: You are releasing a single in a few days here
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  Speaker 3: as we record this. Call my Name yahweh is the
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  Speaker 3: name of it. You're also launching a debut album this summer.
• 0:22
  Speaker 3: God is a person. I think that's in July. Many
• 0:25
  Speaker 3: people in our audience know who you are, but for
• 0:28
  Speaker 3: those who don't, You've worked with Rihanna, Jonas Brothers, Julian Michaels,
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  Speaker 3: Rene Rap, John Billion, many others. What led you to
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  Speaker 3: want to launch your own album and why make it
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  Speaker 3: faith centric?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, that's awesome. That's a great question. So I've been
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  Speaker 2: producing music for as long as I can remember, like
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  Speaker 2: since I was seven years old. I've been making songs
• 0:53
  Speaker 2: and writing producing on a computer. And I never really
• 0:57
  Speaker 2: wanted to be an artist. It was never in my plans,
• 1:00
  Speaker 2: but I did so because about a year ago from today,
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  Speaker 2: I heard the Lord speaks to me. I heard God
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  Speaker 2: speak to me, and he commanded me to make this
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  Speaker 2: record and to release it as artists. And so after
• 1:13
  Speaker 2: receiving that command, was kind of like all right, God,
• 1:16
  Speaker 2: I guess I have to like do this. And the
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  Speaker 2: reason why it's faith based is because I've been saved
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  Speaker 2: since I was twelve years old. I've been following Christ,
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  Speaker 2: but i've been a believer, and so naturally that is
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  Speaker 2: what's sprung out of me.
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  Speaker 3: You say that it kind of just God spoke to
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  Speaker 3: you and that it's faith based.
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  Speaker 2: Naturally.
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  Speaker 3: Was there anything going on in your life at the
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  Speaker 3: time that that kind.
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  Speaker 2: Of sparked this. I mean, were you deep into the word,
• 1:46
  Speaker 2: where you talking to friends?
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  Speaker 3: I'm just curious, So what what kind of led leather
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  Speaker 3: this moment in your life where this happened.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, to be honest, it was completely random. I'm sort
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  Speaker 2: of I've always been involved in my local church play
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  Speaker 2: Cheese there. I'm the musical director, and so I've done that.
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  Speaker 2: I've been going to that church since I was seven
• 2:06
  Speaker 2: or eight years old, and so I was just kind
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  Speaker 2: of done on like business goes, just working on other
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  Speaker 2: people's stuff, still writing songs daily, and Yeah, one day
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  Speaker 2: I was on a trip and I was driving the
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  Speaker 2: church van. All the youth were in the back, and
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  Speaker 2: my wife was sitting next to me, and I just
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  Speaker 2: felt the Lord say I need you to make an album.
• 2:24
  Speaker 2: And funny enough, when I received that command in my mind,
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  Speaker 2: I tried to sort of rationalize it, and I started
• 2:32
  Speaker 2: my mind started to go to all the songs that
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  Speaker 2: I've written for other people, for other artists, not really
• 2:37
  Speaker 2: Christian per see, just songs I have. And I was like,
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  Speaker 2: all right, I guess they could put those together and
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  Speaker 2: slap them together, speak them up a little bit, and
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  Speaker 2: that's an album really, you know, ten twelve songs. And
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  Speaker 2: then God responded to that thought and said, no, I
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  Speaker 2: need you to make new songs that are explicit about me,
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  Speaker 2: like I want you to say Jesus talk about, like
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  Speaker 2: say my name talk about. And so that's why the
• 3:02
  Speaker 2: album is as explicit as it is, because he want
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  Speaker 2: that way.
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  Speaker 3: Amen of that. Well, one title on the track it
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  Speaker 3: caught my attention was one called Celebrity is Dead. I
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  Speaker 3: was gonna ask you, Tana Rock, where their messages that
• 3:17
  Speaker 3: you felt God laying them your heart to talk about?
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  Speaker 3: And I'm assuming that was one. What's the story there?
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  Speaker 2: Yeah? I loved that record. The concept from that actually
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  Speaker 2: came from my wife. It was a conversation we were
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  Speaker 2: having in that the reason why so many celebrities nowadays,
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  Speaker 2: you know, are facing so many internal issues like depression
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  Speaker 2: and just issues with identity in general. Is because us
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  Speaker 2: as humans, we weren't created to be worshiped. We were
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  Speaker 2: never created to be raised or seeing raise. So that
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  Speaker 2: entire song is basically declaring that flame a mountaintop, so
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  Speaker 2: to speak, and redirecting all of that misdirected worship to God,
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  Speaker 2: because when humans are worshiped, it spoils the person being worshiped,
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  Speaker 2: and it also spoils the people doing the worshiping. It
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  Speaker 2: ruins us internally.
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  Speaker 3: Amen to that. What are some other I guess themes
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  Speaker 3: on the album, some other words that you felt God
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  Speaker 3: laying on your heart to sing about, because you previously
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  Speaker 3: said that you didn't want this to be just city
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  Speaker 3: general Christian album. You wanted to be something unique for sure.
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  Speaker 2: I think each song I'm really trying to display the
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  Speaker 2: personhood of God. You know, it goes back to the title.
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  Speaker 2: But there's a record on there called Call My Name,
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  Speaker 2: which is one that you know just came out and
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  Speaker 2: in for OMPH season. It says, yeahweh And something I
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  Speaker 2: wanted to do on each record was to sort of
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  Speaker 2: erase the possibility that it could be applied to anybody
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  Speaker 2: but God, right, and so that song called My Name. Originally,
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  Speaker 2: in its first state, the verses were kind of generic
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  Speaker 2: and like it could be applied to like my wife,
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  Speaker 2: for you know, a loved one, and that was something
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  Speaker 2: I actually didn't want. I wanted to erase that possibility.
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  Speaker 2: I was like, you know what, I want this to
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  Speaker 2: only be about God. And so I went through each
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  Speaker 2: song and then that talks specifically. It's why the verses
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  Speaker 2: start with the child, and so it's coming from the
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  Speaker 2: Father speaking to his creation, speaking to us. And that's
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  Speaker 2: something I tried to do on every self.
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  Speaker 3: The title of the album as God as a person.
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  Speaker 3: I am assuming you're just saying God is Jesus? Is
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  Speaker 3: that the thought there?
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  Speaker 2: I love that That is a part of it. That's
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  Speaker 2: part of it. It's also the idea that God isn't
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  Speaker 2: an inandamant force or energy. You know, a lot of
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  Speaker 2: people like to personify the universe and hear a lot
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  Speaker 2: of speak of like put it out into the universe
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  Speaker 2: and like the universe will hear you and like work
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  Speaker 2: for you, and you know, it'll move things for your good.
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  Speaker 2: And that's sort of the idea that I'm trying to
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  Speaker 2: dispel in a way in that the universe isn't a
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  Speaker 2: being in the universe isn't a person, but God is.
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  Speaker 2: And Biblically, God has thoughts, he has desires, he has
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  Speaker 2: a will for his creation, for the people he created,
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  Speaker 2: And so the entire album is me trying to serve
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  Speaker 2: that theme. And part of that is that Jesus is God,
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  Speaker 2: man of that.
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  Speaker 3: You know, we live in such a dark culture right now,
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  Speaker 3: such a negative culture, such a critical culture. Ten right,
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  Speaker 3: I'm curious. Do you think that's one reason that maybe
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  Speaker 3: God wants you to write this is what's light light
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  Speaker 3: out there in the in the world, and to use
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  Speaker 3: your talents not just for others but for him.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think that's a huge part of it. But
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  Speaker 2: something that serves that as well is the sonic of
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  Speaker 2: the album. I feel in that whether you believe in Christ,
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  Speaker 2: whether whether you believe in God or not, you can
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  Speaker 2: listen to this album and just enjoy the music because
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  Speaker 2: it's uplifting music. It just sounds good sonically, and the
• 7:14
  Speaker 2: fact that it's about Christ just enhances its goodness. But
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  Speaker 2: anybody can enjoy this music.
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  Speaker 3: What genre music is this because I'm asking, because you've
• 7:24
  Speaker 3: kind of dabbled at everything. What is this album?
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  Speaker 2: B that's great? I would just call it pop. Okay.
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  Speaker 2: There are influences of literally every style, like there's you know,
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  Speaker 2: there's urban influence. The entire album sort of has an
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  Speaker 2: eighties pop kind of twinge eighties rock even, and so
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  Speaker 2: I would just call it pop because it kind of
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  Speaker 2: veers into a ton of different routes.
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  Speaker 3: We need more of that, keep that up. We've kind
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  Speaker 3: of gotten too focused on a certain style in the
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  Speaker 3: Christian world and we need to branch out and do
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  Speaker 3: some other stuff. Let me ask you, as as a musician,
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  Speaker 3: what's it like to be in the background and see
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  Speaker 3: a song go viral or famous, knowing that you had
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  Speaker 3: a role, you played a big hand in it. You're
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  Speaker 3: not the front person though. What's that like or is
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  Speaker 3: that just part of the music scene because that happens
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  Speaker 3: at a concert every time there's a concert. You know,
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  Speaker 3: you have a guy to put and get people in
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  Speaker 3: the back, right.
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  Speaker 2: That is actually, you know, just being in the background.
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  Speaker 2: That's one of my favorite things to experience, is because
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  Speaker 2: in the studio we get to sort of just throw
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  Speaker 2: paint at the wall. And have fun and see what happens.
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  Speaker 2: And then of course after that there's the process of
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  Speaker 2: that isn't really that much fun, of like finishing the
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  Speaker 2: product and like packaging it up and putting a bow
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  Speaker 2: on it, and then we give that to the artist,
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  Speaker 2: and the artist is the vehicle that pushes that product
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  Speaker 2: to the world. And after that we kind of just
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  Speaker 2: get to chill and do it for someone else, you know.
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  Speaker 2: And so that's that's kind of why I never wanted
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  Speaker 2: to be an artist, is because that process is fun
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  Speaker 2: to me. To be able to make all these products
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  Speaker 2: and make them really nice and shiny, and then just
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  Speaker 2: like passing it off to the artists and like all right,
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  Speaker 2: olls your thing, you know, and seeing what happens with it.
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  Speaker 3: You get to help make it, and you still get
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  Speaker 3: to go shop at the local grocery store and not
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  Speaker 3: be asked for an autograph.
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  Speaker 4: Right, actually, exactly, Actually, tell me as we close here,
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  Speaker 4: tell me what you want your fans or fans who
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  Speaker 4: are discovering you to take away from this album as
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  Speaker 4: they listen to it.
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  Speaker 2: Yeah, I think one of the main points of every song,
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  Speaker 2: something that exists in every song is that it begins
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  Speaker 2: in an emotion, but it doesn't leave you there. And
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  Speaker 2: so whether you're experiencing a bad emotion, which nowadays in
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  Speaker 2: the world I think everybody is experiencing some sort of hardship,
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  Speaker 2: some sort of sadness or depression or anger. Even My
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  Speaker 2: hope is that with any one of these songs, you
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  Speaker 2: can listen to it and by the end of the
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  Speaker 2: song be carried out.
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  Speaker 3: Of that emotion and then to that Hey Tendrock, thanks
• 10:00
  Speaker 3: so much, thank you.
• 10:04
  Speaker 1: If you like today's episode, please subscribe and leave a
• 10:07
  Speaker 1: five star review.
• 10:08
  Speaker 3: That's how we help more people just like you find
• 10:11
  Speaker 3: the show.
• 10:11
  Speaker 1: A big thanks to the team at life Audio for
• 10:14
  Speaker 1: their partnership with us on the podcast. If you go
• 10:17
  Speaker 1: to lifeaudio dot com, you will find dozens of other
• 10:19
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• 10:22
  Speaker 3: See you next time,