Category: Cory’s Thoughts

Some people will not love what you do, and that’s fine, because if you do what you love, you will always find an audience. People connect with people who are obviously doing what they love, because most people wish that’s what they were doing and wanna know how they can gather the courage to do it, even if people think it’s crazy. So life is simple: Define your version of awesome and then go be it. Don’t worry if it’s not someone else’s version of awesome. And when it doesn’t go your way, try to redefine awesome by having the grace and courage that my brother had in extreme circumstances.

When you take risks in life, the only way to go is to have a sense of humor. Not to get all serious on you, but my problems are so trivial they’re laughable. I’ve known people with real problems who dealt with them with grace and courage. My wife and daily hero is legally blind, yet a blazing success in career and motherhood. My only brother and my dad both died when I was a teenager. My best musical friend also died of a brain tumor (like my brother) in his early twenties. That all sucked. What I learned from all this — particularly from my teenage brother’s amazing response to his fatal illness, when he displayed a wisdom and courage that I try to emulate every day of my life — is a total cliché:Love your life. Figuring out how to do what you love, and spending time with people you love, fuels your days with joy, meaning and purpose. Everything else is inefficient fussing.

No matter how well you sketch things out, there are gonna be times of stability and times of instability in your life. So you might as well come armed with a sense of humor and the knowledge that life is not generally gonna hand you the keys to the kingdom on a platter. People are not gonna agree with you on everything, so don’t get all fussed up when they don’t. Love ’em anyway, even if you think they’re ridiculous. They probably are — but so are you.

Though it might not always have benefitted my pocketbook, whether it’s teaching high school music or coaching soccer or doing Doctor Noize, I’ve always done things that I thought were worthwhile, things that were meaningful to me. And I learned that from my brother.

It became clear through our chats that Danny and I had a lot more in common than we had suspected. We both had unusual childhoods for people in children’s music. Danny was raised in gang culture, saw many friends die, and was regularly in and out of prison in his youth. When I was a kid, my only sibling died of cancer, and that same year, in desperation, my father died by suicide. Danny and I both decided, at some point, that our lives were not going to be defined by the misfortunes that had occurred in our youth. After much reading, reflection, and planning, we very purposefully and proactively took roads that led in a very different direction. We arrived at children’s music as a creative outlet for similar reasons: We’re trying to relive — and perhaps re-invent — our childhoods a bit and give kids a “things are gonna be okay” feeling — something we probably wish we had a little more of.

I knew of Danny Darko’s amazing life story, and I thought he was, in many ways, the most intriguing — and certainly the most unlikely — voice in children’s music. So, when he contacted me about producing the next Microphone Doctors album, I was happy to say yes. But I had no idea what a fantastic collaboration this would turn out to be, both musically and personally. We set to out to write, record, and mix a song a day, in a flurry of fun and creativity, and held ourselves to and accomplished that goal! We ended up having such a great time, which no doubt is reflected in the easy feeling of happiness that permeates the entire recording. My transition from producer to co-artist developed naturally as we worked together.

A special version of Konshens & The Earth Band’s Shine— a Top 5 Hit on Sirius XM Kids Place Live from our Funk The Earth album — was performed as part of the Concert in Celebration of the 76th Anniversary of the United Nations today for UN Day. We hope it brings a shine to your day.