The Voice of Manny Cabo
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[Music] [Applause] [Music]
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forever what's up everybody welcome back to
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another episode of greetings from the garden state i'm your host mike cam we are here in elizabeth new jersey today with my boy manny cabo so if you've
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listened to this show before you know that the intro song is crazy by manny
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cabo and now we're in manny cabo's house somehow i got invited here um stole the song now i've invaded his home but uh
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manny welcome to the show thanks brother thanks for having me matt it's weird you know you're introducing me to your show it's my house but you know what i
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figured let's make it intimate bro yeah right plus i like you that's a good thing well that yeah that helps me if you didn't then we'd have a big problem
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i just like showed up in your house and came through your back door um but uh no i'm really excited i really appreciate
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you having me here and i've messaged you a bunch of times i'm like thank you so many times for letting me use crazy which right now is my favorite manny
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cabo song but i'm sure as we kind of progress into the next year which we'll get into in the second segment
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um that might change right uh we'll see see but crazy's got a special place in my heart but
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listen i appreciate using it yeah it's cool for me too because of what you're doing you know you're representing the garden state me being from jersey so it
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yeah it's a good mix yeah all right so so let's learn a little bit about you sure so manny cabo born and raised in
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jersey right yeah so let's let's kind of go through like early manny cabo days and then kind of how life progressed and
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we'll do all that yeah absolutely so i was born in newark new jersey that's uh what is it st james hospital okay uh
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lived in newark in the um sanford you know the south orange avenue yeah now it's
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kind of like a war zone there but growing up it wasn't too bad so i lived there for about five years and then i migrated over here to elizabeth and i've
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been here ever since um bought this house probably in two what
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is it uh 1995. wow so it's been a while it's been a while yeah it's been a while no
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i had to do that yeah i'm sure it's gonna happen again at some point over the course of this episode but um yeah i've been here ever since
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and believe me there has been uh there's been a slew of events that have transpired in elizabeth but yeah this
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has been my home you know every time i uh i'm on the podcast like where are you from i'm a jersey boy you know what exit
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you know we've heard that a million times it's you especially with all your episodes yeah well you know what's funny like i mean i grew up in paquanic and
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then moved up to sparta and sparta basically like has no exit you got to go all the way out on 80 and then go all
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the way up 15 and then you're in the sticks and everyone's like what exit are you and i'm like i have no idea like we
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don't even come close to you that's out there man sparta yeah good baseball out there too remember yeah
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now i'm in morristown which is you know a little bit different but um but yeah so anyway so uh the music background so
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obviously like you didn't just like lay down crazy and like that was it and i was like oh i found this you know i was lucky i woke up one day i'm like crazy i
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laid it down it was like six and uh yeah amazing like a prodigy a child prodigy yeah i wish yeah so let's kind
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of go so i know you're a baseball guy we talked about that on my other show in the morning spotlight we won't get too deep into that but that's one of the
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things that we have in common sure um but you know you grow up you're playing baseball was music always a part of your life growing up yeah you know it was
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always like in the ambien you know it underscored my life because i loved music growing up i remember sitting and
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i tell the story all the time it's very surreal especially after losing my dad uh lying on the floor in my living room
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in elizabeth and he'd have this old german grundig
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stereo all the vinyl that's you know that's why i have so much vinyl here i can't let go of it and he would play the beatles uh he would play dango he'd play
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latin folk music motown i had a pretty steady dose of you know this eclectic background of music that's where it all
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started you know slowly as the years elapsed he introduced me to the drums yeah of course and i loved it and uh
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that was like that was like your original thing like because obviously you know now singing has kind of become yeah i mean maybe i don't know you can
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correct me if i'm wrong like the manny cabo thing yeah manny cobb was a singer but that was like drums were like the
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original thing that you kind of exactly were involved in with music exactly yeah i did that for 10 years prior to you
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know played in little cover bands here little garage bands as we used to call them right and it was fun but on
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occasion you'd find me doing some back vocals and it was cool because one day we were doing this gig i can't remember i think
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it was at kane kane university yeah right around the corner yeah just passed it yeah yeah and i was going to senior
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all the time i actually missed my my uh final exam to play this gig i just wasn't happy i was a terrible student
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you know i flew by the seat of my pants when it came to that but and i started singing and nobody laughed
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like if anything they're playing they're looking back like where the hell would that come from you know who is this guy
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right yeah and i developed this affinity to be the front man you know not for attention but i just really felt
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comfortable behind the mic which is why i do what i do now and you know being on the voice and everything but it wasn't always that way yeah drums was my
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introduction into the musical space which was cool yeah no very cool and i know you glossed over the voice and i
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know that's been beat to death with you yeah yeah if you want to learn more about
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that just type in manny cabo the voice and you can see and it's it's epic but we won't get too deep into that uh lavos
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i just have to say now i know how to say it that's actually pretty good say it again
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very good right very good you know the first time that you came on my other show i said lavazz and you're like bro
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dude all right we're done with this interview man that's how long it lasted it was literally like 15 minutes but um but
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yeah so uh so you know you have the voice you do lavos um and then but you do so many other things which is one of
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the things that i think is so interesting about you is that like you're not just like the music guy like we were talking about before like it's
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the photography the podcasting like everything else that kind of go the fashion stuff everything else that kind
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of goes into being creative and that's one of the things that i really like about you as someone that is you know i mean not to toot my own horn but i feel
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like i'm kind of creative and you are man yeah sure but um but i like some i like that stuff too so let's let's kind
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of like unpack some of those other things that you're doing yeah and those things that you kind of have going on well you know and today you already know
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about my photography i had to you know push this thing up an hour because i'm leaving for nashville and uh i do a lot of artist branding photo shoots and
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photography is another thing that my dad introduced me to back oh my god when i was in uh actually when i was in
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high school i was going away to college on baseball scholarship and uh you know i've always enjoyed taking pictures i i
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loved i used to revere watching my dad when we used to go to puerto rico and he would photograph the landscapes he was so patient photographing sunsets and i'm
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like this is amazing and so one day i snapped the shot and my dad was very particular about his
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equipment hence why i take care of everything he was always very meticulous you know never dropped anything and i
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snapped the picture and he goes back and back in the day we didn't have you know this immediate gratification we had film
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we had rolls of film yeah yeah so when he got the the images back he's like and i knew it and i was like oh he's
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going to yell at me for touching his camera and he looks at the images like i didn't take this you take this
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and i'm like uh that depends yeah i don't know how to answer it right what do you want to hear exactly and he
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loved it and soon enough like a couple of weeks later he gave me my first minolta x 700. and the rest as they say
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was history i started taking pictures in college and then after i tore my roticoff that was the end of baseball came back at
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scene hall became the photo editor so that's when i actually felt that that
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bug that bit me just take it further you know i started going to madison square garden photograph our games at st john's
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yeah uh uh back in the day when it was called brendon burn arena one of those days and it was just so much fun and then my
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sister was a model so i started photographing models and it just i don't know it just developed it was like a
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stages yeah of development in my life with photography and now i double down on just artist branding yeah as a
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musician i could bridge that gap exactly so it makes sense working for record labels and magazines i know what they
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want and i also do it for me right and the reason why nashville duh it's
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music city right exactly yeah it's over saturated musicians but they love that new york fashion edge that's what i
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bring to the table i just i take great pride in my artistry and not to sound pretentious but i i was born an artist
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it is what it is i can't do anything else i'm just unhappy but whatever it is that i do creatively whether it's podcasting whether it's singing or
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photography i just go all in and it doesn't feel like work yeah you know you know that feeling no no yeah that's why i like i
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like doing this i mean this you know i'm not getting rich off doing greetings not yet not yet much much to the uh you
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know surprise of all everybody that listens to this show which is an ample audience but you know what i think is interesting too because like you've kind
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of you found yourself in this world of like music and now you've kind of taken all your creative outlets and kind of
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spread them out over all those different things whether it's you know artist branding with the photography obviously your own music which we'll get to in a
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little bit in the second segment and then you know doing all the stuff with the podcast mojo for musicians can you talk about
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that for a little bit yeah you know and again i seem that every time i mention anything creative it's always directly
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related to my dad yes my dad you know before before he left this planet um
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he said you know what you should do something great something different with your music you know you have a great message you know
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you're bilingual you could do it in both too and and i started mojo for musicians because it
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allowed me to be the voice of so many musicians that don't have one right anybody yeah that matter
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and not to mention it was gratifying because i get to showcase artists and i get to showcase people in the in the
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industry and how i overcame certain hardships you know a lot of information i educate my my ecosystem
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so i felt that that certainly upheld what my dad told me to try to do and i think i've been very successful because
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i'm clear on my message and that's to be the source of inspiration for musicians and i think that's very important
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especially when you're talking about branding because you just mentioned something that i have been battling for so many years it's this
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constant crossroad that i get to like should i double down on my photography my music right my podcasting
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and what i realized was if i keep my message clear yeah you know
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because a confused mind never buys right if i keep my message clear and keep it consistent throughout all of my
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backgrounds then it makes sense yeah so that's exactly what i did in photography i just focus on musicians on my podcast
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i focus on musicians obviously music speaks for itself yeah sure so it makes perfect sense and that's why i'm really happy doing what i'm doing and where i'm
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going yeah so in the second segment we're going to get a little into the kind of like future stuff that manny
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cabo has coming out so can we talk about like maybe some of the significant accomplishments that you're proud like you're most proud of over the last you
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know your career in these creative spaces you know because obviously like crazy's your best song because that's
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why it may be a little biased yeah i'm definitely biased but um you know what like my favorite part of crazy and this
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is just you know from from my end is and what i use at the end of every show is
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the end of crazy which is like the whoa and then it's just like that like you know like really hard driving towards
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yes oh my god like i like i stop every time i'm editing an episode i stop and i listen to like that
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it's amazing i mean if you've never actually made it to an end of an episode you probably should because it's my favorite part of every episode um
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let's talk about some of those kind of things like people can kind of like know the you know obviously like you have a lot of significant accomplishments like
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we mentioned the voice in lavos and all the other things that you've done but maybe some things that you personally you're most proud of as some of the
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things that you've accomplished and created i think the biggest thing i'm very grateful for is becoming a voice
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especially you know i've won awards for anti-bullying anti-hate anti-suicide you know with where your words and hate has
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no home here but also i'm pretty proud of the fact that uh i became a pretty cool songwriter yeah you know in the
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caveat was you know i wanted to move to nashville and that's exactly what i did you know music city is the songwriting
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capital of the world right so that's one of the areas where i felt i needed to strengthen
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and with that came the release of multiple songs you know crazy and then uh of course you know what i'm working
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on right now which i'm really excited about i think going forward with everything that i've
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done i've made my mark yeah and i've done what i've wanted to do i've established myself as a pretty decent musician but i
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think where i'm going based upon all the um the hardships that i've been through
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the learning experiences that i've had with with multiple people in the industry that i've been privy to deal
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and work with i know that my future efforts are going to be tenfold right because of all the
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accumulation of knowledge that i've acquired but with respect to my accomplishments man i i can't really
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pick one that's that's a loaded question yeah but you know what i like about how you answered that and i think that's like really what really sums you up it's
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just like it's not necessarily like hey crazy was a great song and my cam uses on his podcast so it's obviously like
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this amazing song which it is it's like the other things that you do for like the community that you kind of have
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surrounded yourself with and created on your own yeah you know like i think that's that to me
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and that's what i was like almost like expecting you to answer i kind of like softballed one up for you um just
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because like that's that's really what it is i mean like that's why i like you and that's why i wanted to kind of like it when i was kind of looking through
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new jersey musicians to use as like kind of the you know the first thing people hear you know obviously like there's
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plenty of new jersey musicians that people heard of of course of course and obviously i know you so that helps um
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but like you know that was one of the things that i liked about you because you're so community driven and that's what this show is trying to be all about
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is like the community different communities yeah i love what you're doing man that's why there's this great synergy here you know and it's kind of
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serendipitous when you think about it because very few there you know i have to turn down a lot of podcasts because unfortunately you can't say yes to
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everything there's only so many hours of the day but for those that really are doing something great for the community you're
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bringing awareness helping out business owners entrepreneurs within the state i love that so and i'm humbled that you
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asked yeah you know i just sometimes people are like well dude you've done so much i'm like i'm just manny from
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elizabeth i'm just a ball guy with a mic at the end of the day but yeah right apparently what i do um you know
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resonates with many yeah and i'm just grateful for that because there's a lot more coming and i i it's certainly
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imperative for me to continue to assist and empower my ecosystem of artists not
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just here but globally right because it's tough man especially after you know uh
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coveted yep all the limitations canceled tours i'm there because i'm in the trenches with them i know what they feel
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sometimes i want to crawl in that little corner and cry but i can't i got to keep making music you know can't stop
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so and i appreciate the question it's that there's so many layers and so many things that i still want to do that i'm
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just incorporating the gifts that i've managed to cultivate and just spread them across and i know that's like kind
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of taboo you don't spread yourself then but i can't help it and i think they all complement one another with respect to
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what i'm trying to do yeah you know yeah 100 100 so we're gonna take our first break of this episode uh and then we're
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gonna get into the stuff that you have coming up sure you know we'll tease it a little bit but there's some music
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there's some writing and all that kind of stuff so we're very excited about that but uh this is the greetings from
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the garden state podcast we are here in elizabeth new jersey today with my boy manny cabo i'm mike hamm we'll be right
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back
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it is time for today in new jersey history the new jersey fish commission stocked brook trout for fishermen for the first time on april 25th 1879. the
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new york times reported that this sport has begun here in good earnest and a good day sport may be had anywhere in
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this part of the country and that is today in new jersey history
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all right we're back for segment two of this episode of greeting from the garden state i am of course mike ham we're here in elizabeth new jersey with manny cabo
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uh the voice of oh well i'm actually the voice but you're like the the theme you
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know the the the just the sidekick brother yeah you're like yeah you're my son you're the robin to my batman ingredients from the garden state which
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i love um but uh so in the first thing we kind of learned a little bit about your background all the things you have going on so people can kind of learn a
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little bit about you if they don't know you already they should um you know so now i want to kind of get into i know
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you have some stuff coming up this year um you know an album that's kind of going to be like released over the
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course of this year i think um and a book two yeah um so let's talk a little bit about the album first because
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obviously like you know you're a music guy and that's obviously a music thing so why don't we talk a little bit about
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that and all that stuff you have coming up and then kind of like you know what people can expect from these songs that you're releasing over the next year no
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man that's a great question it's one of those things where i was a little bit ambivalent right because i
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wanted to release an album and after some serious counseling you know with damien keys and i don't know for those
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of you don't know he's a huge music guy has his own academy out in in the uk and rick barker who was taylor swift's
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manager and you know acquiring so much knowledge from those two beasts in the industry i
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realize that i'm not gonna do an album i've got eight incredible songs and four already in the works after that so
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i'm gonna release one song this is my commitment and my promise to my community right to my fans and my supporters i'm gonna release one song
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every six weeks for the next year yeah and it it's that's a tall order yeah because there's
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so much marketing you know for every release you've got to have at least a 30-day game plan you know micro content
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it's just it's overwhelming and thinking about it just i find myself being exhausted but
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that's what i want to do because i want to keep that momentum you know i put a lot of work into this music and you know
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my my co-writer and partner and uh dave rico multiple and countless hours into
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studios i want to make the best music possible that i know i can make but it also
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requires some significant marketing behind it so i definitely want to incorporate all those elements to really
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release something that's i shouldn't say perfect because there's no such thing but at its optimum point
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of value right what was the song that you released last year i don't know why i'm forgetting it uh way down way down yeah yeah yeah yeah
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cause i just remember seeing like that one and how much because that was around the time we recorded our episode of the
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other show which is that's right you know i i you know i know you mentioned in the first segment that you've had to say no but you said yes to me twice so i
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feel flattered um but uh but i just were like how much i mean still even like you're still putting stuff out for that
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particular song and now you're gonna do like basically the same thing you know it's funny i put way down during hurricane ida yeah and
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at first i'm like oh man i just released this song and one day later i get hit
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with hurricane eyed it was brutal i couldn't really market it right the only way i was marketing it is was through
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the the rubble and through the uh it was just a dark time for me cause you got
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you got crushed we could talk about that now yeah crush during hurricane yeah i mean this where we are sitting here yeah
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this was full of rubble yeah water we had about uh if you see the frame back there since we're gonna have some visual
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reference we had close to 12 13 feet of water my basement studio was gone water was up here we lost so
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much stuff and with that being said i spent a lot of time reflecting like wow
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we're pretty lucky because i honestly thought we were going to have to get helicoptered out of this place there's fema canoes up my street cars floating
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oh i lost everything right what 25 years of my livelihood uh 80 000 worth of equipment and you
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know photography podcasting music that adds up pretty quickly so it was pretty devastating but in the midst of all that
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i released way down and it was actually the best thing that could have happened to me yeah because way down is a song
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about resilience right right and i wanted to write that song for the sole purpose of elevating someone you know
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who comes to that crossroad yeah who embraces that fear or that doubt or that skepticism you know the criticisms
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because i've been there so it was one of those songs to kind of like shield off that negative energy
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and coupled with the fact that i was extremely transparent with the people on lives i was doing lives and same pair of
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pants right shorts i had no clothes yeah i remember watching those like you were like in you know showing your basement
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like out front like with everything like you know all your [ __ ] out front on the front lawn not to mention we had tv out
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listen i'm an artist we love media attention but when tv al jazeera and the associated press are in your house you
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know that can't be good no right definitely not so um it was it was devastating uh to use the accurate word
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but i'm still here all right and you know one of the things that i did i pivoted at that moment because i started to be grateful for the things that were
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still here yeah i was i still had life and with life comes possibility and people totally embraced me and my
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vulnerability and that's a superpower for many people they don't even realize that yeah just be yourself
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right not everybody gets to see a rock star i don't have to be like the you know nails painted rock guy you know
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yeah you know that's not like that can't be me yeah and it's impossible to be someone that you're not 24 hours a day
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it's exhausting right you all know that so that release really propelled me and uh sedimented that relationship with my
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audience which was great for me yeah and it goes to show you though i'm very big on sustaining relationships you know my
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supporters are everything to me because they sustain my career exactly right so i gotta cater to them it's that's that's the lease i can do and they came through
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man it was a gofundme they came through they helped me uh significantly my family myself so we're really grateful
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and that song marked a really significant turning point in my life yeah you know and uh
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i i hate to say it but i'm grateful for that experience right because you get to truly appreciate what really matters in
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your life i think you learn like kind of like what you're saying you learn a lot about yourself too absolutely and like you
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know obviously the community as well but like yourself when your back's up against the wall yeah chips are down like you you got to see what you're all
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about yeah and that's you know that's a that's an understatement right i i honestly didn't know what i was
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going to do but that wasn't my problem my main concern and the duty that i had as a father as a
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dad as a son is to persevere be the rock of gibraltar even though inside i was dying you know
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because they couldn't see me break down because then you know right the whole system breaks exactly yeah and it was
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rough but as the adage states if it doesn't kill you it makes you stronger yeah and
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that certainly was uh what it transpired that that week actually i should say five months but
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you know right so i mean everything after yeah yeah yeah definitely um so i know we got off track but we were
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talking about the album yeah so let's go back to that yeah yeah i forgot where we were no no i was gonna say instead of
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dropping the album yeah i'm gonna release one single for the next nine months consistently because i definitely
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want to have that constant flow you know it's audio is a different means of consumption yeah you know you don't need
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to really stop what you're doing you could work out with it you could be driving in the car uh so i definitely want to
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tell my fans that i'm here and i'm stronger than ever yeah and the music is getting better and better and better
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because i'm still growing and developing you know as the years lapses technology gets a little bit more robust there's a
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lot more things that i can do now with my creativity i'm excited but you have to have the right team to do it i'm really grateful for the people
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that have worked with me on this album you know the david brownings um you know earl cohen's these multi-grammy award-winning people dave
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browning worked with katy perry nfl cece winans david my guitar player producer
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he's got so many amazing things coming on and that song way down was also right now got acquired by the north american
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rugby league as their soundtrack so i'll be performing three the uh my main performance
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during three of those games that are here internationally so i'm really excited about that yeah they're loving the vibe of the song yeah no i mean well
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you know listen i love your vibe that's why you're here uh well that's why i'm here right because i'm in your home um
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but say i see what you did there yeah yeah so uh the book yeah can we talk a little bit about that because we i mean
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when we talked about on the phone you told me about the album you played me a song so i i know what some of these songs sound like everybody else doesn't
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have to actually wait to have uh hear them come out um but we didn't really dive into like what no one was all about
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so i'd love to hear kind of because it was relatively fresh that's what we didn't touch upon it and i was waiting for you know uh everything to get
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finalized but it's definitely a huge accomplishment writing a book in itself is definitely something that you know you should be proud of oh you're doing
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it it's huge yeah and not that i've been putting it off it's just it wasn't the right time you know i had a lot to say
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and this won't be the first book or the last book i should say yeah uh it's called soul
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and it's essentially about these moments in life where you think you know where you're going you think
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this is what you want and then very similar to what happened to me in my baseball that's that's the
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only thing i want to do and then i tore my roticoff now what yeah so sometimes just assuming to sum it up sometimes the
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universe gives you this cosmic 2x4 right a little moment of awakening yeah
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and the book is essentially about pivoting right sometimes you're coerced to pivot but it also embraces the agony that we
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feel when we feel that our world is crumbling yeah you know in front of us but then these miraculous things happen
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you realize wait a second i have a bigger calling right because of this yeah and then you start becoming
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grateful for what transpired for what you thought was a calamity yeah was totally the opposite right and that's
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essentially what the book entails and it's going to do very well with my female readers especially you know i'm very big
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on women empowerment it just so happens that it was it fit perfectly for the role of a female and i've got very uh
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very large plans with this book hopefully it becomes a bestseller and from there i'd like to launch two
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other books of course it's all about empowering and motivation you know that's all i'm all about right but
25:47
not to the point where you know it's manny's ways the highway you have to do this no it's embracing this uniqueness
25:52
that we all have to offer this world yeah so i'm really excited to where this is probably gonna just catapult me to the level where i want to go plus it
25:58
builds your brand you know and and it's directly in correlation with what i stand for yeah exactly just never giving
26:04
up yeah you know embracing the perseverance within us yeah that's that's really cool and and is there like a release date on that yet not yet we're
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waiting as a matter of fact he's actually increased it already yeah oh it's done it's done preview's done the artwork is done you're gonna dig it and
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uh you know what i might have to give you a signed copy too oh being that you're in your house you're in my house though yeah i'm not going to say no
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um but i'm excited about it i really am all kidding aside i'm really excited about it's a big accomplishment but more
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importantly i'm glad with what i know it's going to do with the world it's going to bring a lot more confidence uh
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a lot more of that hutzpah that we're all looking for right good energy from the book and that's that that's what
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it's all about at the end of the day yeah no i love that all right so we're gonna take our second break last break of this episode that was amazing i can't
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wait for these things um so last week of this episode so we're here in elizabeth new jersey with manny cabo this is the greetings from the
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garden state podcast i'm mike hamm we will be right back
27:01
it is time for new jersey fun fact of the day did you know that new jersey with 7 420 square miles ranks 46th in
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land area in the united states and that is your new jersey fun fact of the day
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all right we're back for segment three and our final segment of this episode of greetings from the garden state i'm mike ham we're here in elizabeth new jersey
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with manny cabo uh so in the first night we learned all about your background not all about it but you know a good cliff
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notes version of manny cabo's background second segment we learned about the album coming out and that they'll be released over you know uh the course of
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a year and then the book that you have coming out called soul which you know we'll we'll put up a release date once
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you post that that will help kind of share that out but um the last segment i i you know it was kind of going back and
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forth between what we were going to talk about in this last segment because this is kind of the first one of a few
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that we'll do soon of kind of like spotlighting people that live in jersey um so we have a couple more coming up
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over the rest of the year awesome um but this one was a great one to start with because of the influence that you've had
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on the show already um so i appreciate that but uh let's let's talk a little bit about like growing up in jersey
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maybe not musically because we were talking about offline about how like musically you know it's not like bruce
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springsteen i got my spring scene i know i see that but like bruce springsteen is not really like your vibe you know it's
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not necessarily like the same type of music yeah yeah yeah um but uh maybe like culturally like growing up in
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jersey how do you think that's kind of influenced you if it has it all it certainly has because i mean i'm you
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know this is the urban life yeah you know we've got a pretty it's a melting pot of all types
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of music here you know it wasn't just one-sided i'm i grew up a rocker right you know my first introduction to the
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beatles that was it i didn't look back but because of my background as a hispanic
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i appreciated all genres of music especially all the different types of inter instrumentation and where i live
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elizabeth you know there's a pretty wide variety of you know backgrounds and and races and all that stuff which is it's
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always been beautiful for me and it it's kind of sad because i realize how much hate there is in this world and
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there's so many countries that i would love to visit that that people shun because of whatever reason i'm like dude
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there's beauty everywhere man you know it just so fortunately because of music i was
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able to bypass all the nonsense kill the noise right and i just embrace all types of music you know um good friends of
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mine they were into rocks some of them love salsa merengue you know uh afro cuban jazz which was cool so i was
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exposed to so many different genres of music but jury to be honest with you jersey
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never really influenced me with respect to music like and i i get a lot of backlash here because i'm a jersey guy but i was never
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a fan of bruce springsteen or bon jovi but here's the thing appreciate what they've done they're just
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incredible musicians at what they do they are monsters of what they do just not my musical vibe
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but i'm not going to disrespect them for that sure and to be honest with you i'd love to be in that tier and my legacy is
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to be in the realms of like the sinatras and the springsteens and the bon jovi's you know here's manny from elizabeth
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some guy that we never knew who just puts out great consistent music with a powerful message right that's
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what i want to be you know and i've had the luxury of playing to sold out arenas and it feels great
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but what i love the most about what jersey has provided for me is that upbringing that diverse background that
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versatility with respect to appreciate different um you know ethnic ethnicities i should say
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yeah uh that i you can't get in in other parts of the world because new jersey's like this big you know as opposed to
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like texas or california we're so so overly populated and sometimes i do i
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want to escape i want to move to sparta no offense but it's like in the middle of nowhere i get nobody bothers me my neighbor's like quiet right so i
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sometimes i crave that and now since i'm going to nashville i'm kind of happy i'm going away from jersey
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a little bit you know because jersey has been great but it's also exposed me to a lot of hardships sure no
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it's not the most embracing state in my personal opinion that may be different for everyone else i really
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don't care i'm just talking about my perspective right but you know my journeys here musically have been really
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difficult you know growing up with my bands um you know
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club owners abusing you know getting ripped off you know other bands jealousies dumping my microphones in
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water stealing my camera equipment and you know how i am i've always been the same way same
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shirt t-shirt you know type of guy that loves helping people yeah so growing up some of my experiences have
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been you know somewhat um mind-boggling let's leave it at that use of a better word because i couldn't
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explain it and that's why i kind of developed like this chip on my shoulder you know had this ego because everyone thought it was
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well it's manny's way or the highway it wasn't like that i do things from a collective standpoint yeah i want
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everybody to grow and i couldn't find that musically here so that was a big challenge in itself yeah so what i did
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was you know what i think is interesting about that though is that like musically yeah i'm i'm with you yeah i don't i'm
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not in the music world so i don't really get it but what i do like about what the things you said just to kind of put like
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a positive spin on the bad answer is the idea that like you know like new jersey really tiny most densely populated state
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in the country uh but also one of the most diverse populations in the country and i think like just me
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i think like if i i think that that's one of the things that has made me who i am today you know i mean like being like
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more worldly being more aware of like things that are going on with other cultures and i think like that while it
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may not necessarily like directly relate to like a music background it relates to you and that's what i like we were
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saying in the first second that's one of the things that i like about you or maybe the second second i forget when it was um about like how
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these communities that you've helped develop like i would argue and this is just you that like that would not have
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happened or it would have happened in a different way if you lived in like the middle of nowhere yeah you know what i
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mean yeah so i think like that's one of the things that's important about jersey is that like those are things that
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you can't really get in other places there are places that you can you could live in the city you know and and get it
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yeah you know what i mean but i mean if you're living like in new york city or if you're living in houston big cities yeah you know there's really no big city
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here in elizabeth rather in new jersey we're not known for the big city right but there's there's like this this tiny
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segments yeah we have jersey city right we have newark we have elizabeth we're known for being the big city very
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diverse i never saw color i never saw black and white in chinese i just saw people you just live right that's what i
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was used to yeah i just wish that we all here especially in the states you know and this is a blanket statement
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especially in the states i wish we could all be part of this urban community because then you realize how much
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greatness and how much uniqueness there is to offer right but i can't speak for everyone exactly i can only speak for
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myself and my experiences but i'm i'm very fortunate with respect to that you know could i've said something
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different about my musical uh trajectory in new jersey absolutely yeah
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you know i wish i wish i lived in los angeles or las vegas or even music city because i when i was in
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what yeah so five years ago i lived in nashville for two years yeah everyone knew me i was getting shows everywhere
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it was tough to get shows in jersey right that's not because it's always difficult you got to be good it's just the politics different yeah it's
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nonsense here right uh and i'm not the only one that says that believe me a lot of musicians i if i told you that's why
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everybody here that's a musician moves tonight exactly obviously like that's that's what happens and it's a shame because we do have a lot of talent and
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i'm not you know bashing new jersey but i do think that things could have been done differently
34:48
here with respect to the music scene back in the 80s it was great you know the metal scene was all in here
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but you know it was it was just that time was just a little chunk of time right you know in in this whole
35:02
process and and and lifespan of manny cabo but i i can honestly say that moving forward
35:09
it has certainly helped me see things differently and has helped me persevere right because it's
35:16
those hardships that kind of keep you going that was the impetus has sparked wait a second i'm not i'm not going to
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settle for for anything less than what i know what i'm worth for so it made me work harder to get recognized right so
35:27
that's a good thing yeah no 100 i think like the other we talked about ida we talked about like these things that we're talking about now yeah and i think
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like that's i think this is one of the things we talked about on our pre-interview call is like that's kind
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of like the jersey thing like you got like a chip on your shoulder you're like you know like the work ethic the
35:45
toughness yeah all that kind of stuff and i think like that plays into it as well you know i mean because like if you
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know if everything was easy you probably wouldn't have been doing the things that you're doing absolutely you know i mean like so now you've pushed yourself
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beyond maybe what you thought you were capable of because you know you have grown up in an environment where
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like things were not just being like here you go you know yeah whenever you want exactly that kind of thing i sidestepped that fake bubble of
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self-entitlement that doesn't exist in my world i worked my ass off for everything that i've gotten and i'm
36:15
totally appreciative of it so yeah i completely concur with that statement 100 so let's let's also take it into
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like we talked about this already but one of the things i want to like really drive home so people kind of like understand like what you're all about is
36:26
like the communities that you've developed yeah um so talk to me a little bit about that and kind of how you use
36:32
your influence to kind of help other younger musicians other musicians yeah um and then maybe like how those have
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influenced you in your own way yeah absolutely uh and i think that that's
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what truly defines me and again we i have to allude back to what we're talking about the podcast one of the reasons why i created this podcast is
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because you know the world of music the entertainment industry is brutal
36:57
dude it will chew you up and spit you out doesn't care who you are and the one thing that i really try to
37:04
at least counsel my fellow artists out there is a be yourself but with being yourself comes what criticisms right you
37:12
know the hate yep uh the insecurities you start doubting yourself
37:17
and i know i speak from personal experiences so what i've tried to do is build a community of artists
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that know that's just a facade because when people have a problem with you yeah personally it's nothing to do
37:30
with you yeah it's their own voice yep they've got to deal with it you know not you but unfortunately their projections
37:36
are totally different we're not all built the same right i take criticisms and they just shrug off you know like that whole jay-z thing right yeah and um
37:44
what i try to do is be the voice for those people let them know just ignore that you know and i use the
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whole uh analogy of crickets right crickets are your haters
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right and if you notice you're in a field at nighttime they're all over the place but what happens if when you get closer to them
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oh they stop i like that they silence yeah i've never heard that before i like that so just pretend that they're crickets of
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course they're going to talk smack behind your face but when you have to face them and here's here's the ironic thing they they
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immediately quiet but here's the amazing thing even my haters i've got to get new haters because even
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the ones that did now they like me now they know what i'm all about yeah but the caveat to that is
38:27
i took the next step for example well i was on the voice i got an onslaught of negative comments who's this guy you
38:32
know andy cobb he's 45 how dare you compete with 18 to 19 year olds you know the audacity
38:38
and um the first thing that they tell you at universal records right is like just guys one thing you really have to listen
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to us here don't read the negative comments yeah don't read the negative comments what's the first thing that
38:51
they all did they read the negative comments and a lot of them were emotionally distraught
38:57
and so i found myself in my hotel rooms and i'll land my plane after this one
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but i'm making a point yeah i found myself in the hotel room inspiring these guys like no you're looking at this the wrong way right most of those people
39:09
that are actually you know um throwing shade are the ones that are just jealous because of what you've
39:15
accomplished you're already winners yeah so from that point which is why i wanted
39:21
to to focus on this that came my transitional period right that
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pivoting moment where i decided to be the voice in my community to let people know know search deep inside love yourself first
39:33
of course you know and you got to do the work everything requires doing the reps
39:39
right so i'm kind of like that trainer that vocal trainer that kind of kind of always reminding you oh well now you
39:45
know don't let these comments bother you right don't let it get in the way of your workflow don't let it get in the
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way of your personal greatness that's essentially why i've tried to build with my community whether it's my photography
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whether it's my podcasting or my music my messages is very clear i'm your encouragement your words of
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encouragement yeah i love that and i've had to deal with a lot of that nonsense in order to arrive to that
40:11
conclusion yeah but i'm so grateful because again not everybody is equipped to deal with that that baggage
40:18
but i managed to take it and convolute it into something amazing that will uplift my community yeah no i love that
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and that this is i you know i don't know why i'm gonna tell this story but we were talking about uh with uh kerry
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sullivan who runs the jersey collective instagram account forty thousand followers and it just
40:34
crushes it yeah nice it's like this photography account of photographers in new jersey right and they do like every
40:40
week they do a takeover you know and so like every i did a takeover i'm not a photographer but i took pictures and i
40:45
posted them up there it was great but anyway so we were talking about on her episode because she has a book coming out called new jersey fan club and she
40:51
was like i don't know why people you know make fun of jersey all the time and i'm like because people love to hate
40:56
on things that they like can't have yeah you know like jersey's got it all baby it's a good point you know so like they like love to throw stones because people
41:03
don't like to see people that are doing things that they wish they could do yeah so they got to bring them back down to
41:08
their level and it's really cool that you kind of found this way to make people aware that like they're just
41:15
they're throwing stones well nobody cares about what you're doing nobody cares about your opinions all they care about is when their opinions are coming
41:20
out of your mouth exactly exactly it sucks yeah but you're right it's terrible yeah but let me know if you're gonna put yourself out there like we put
41:26
ourselves out there and you know like you know you with all the different things that you're doing and that people that you kind of frequent with you know
41:32
like there's gonna be people that just don't like you yeah and they're they're for no reason for no reason they're not they're not going to like worry about
41:38
the fact that like they need to know like what you're all about or what your backstory is or why you do what you do
41:43
they're just going to be like you know screw this guy i'm glad i'm glad you said that i don't i hope you don't mind me interjecting but yeah our job as
41:49
creators is to create we can't be concerned with what the
41:55
results are yeah right you create if you're happy with it release it to the world it's not your concern what people
42:02
think about it your job is to keep creating hey if they hated it they liked it awesome you know so i want to remind
42:07
people of that you can't cater to the criticisms you are never i don't care who you are you are never going to
42:13
please everybody it's virtually if there's one thing that could be labeled as impossible that's it that's it you
42:20
can't please everybody as much as you're gonna try it's just never and it's okay that's the beauty of it because if we were all the same it'd be a pretty
42:26
goddamn boring place to be at right so yeah just want to remind everyone of that yeah no i love that and then i mean
42:31
this episode is rocked for you know part of the pun uh it's all him guys it's all
42:37
it's it's all him notice i'm looking at both cameras cameras i can't even see it yeah um but
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all right so if people want to learn more about you find your stuff find all that kind of stuff where can they go to to get it absolutely and i appreciate
42:49
that yeah just go to mannycable.com everything that has to do with my world whether it's photography whether it's music by podcasting my releases you know
42:56
i've joined this incredible space at the giraffe tower nfts uh which i'm really excited about and i think that everyone
43:02
should look into it gary coyne and rally and what they've done out there so i'm excited of where the future holds for me
43:09
i know where i'm going but the wonderful thing about that is where i'm going i'm also going to take
43:15
everyone else that's in my community right and take them to that next level that's why it's exciting so yeah all my social medias are on there so
43:21
mannycabo.com that's it and be on the lookout for all my new music so i'm really excited and new episodes oh by the way i added a new segment in my
43:28
podcast called the limelight lounge okay where it's it it kind of strays away from my normal workflow where they're
43:33
usually 45 minutes 50 minutes you know i come in with this um kind of like a monologue of steps and
43:39
trips uh trips uh like tips and stuff you can take a trip too whatever you want i'm not judging you i'm not judging
43:45
you yeah right uh far away lands but um and then i get into the the segment itself this is just specifically
43:52
focusing on the artist you know where i showcased their talents talk about their hardships how they overcame so i'm really excited about that i've got like
43:58
10 artists lined up so it's going to be a cool segment uh and in addition to the podcast so yeah and the book of course
44:04
of course yeah and like i said once those things like the music gets released or the book gets released we'll
44:09
like hammer it well we're honest we're on it man yeah i'll kind of give like my little boost you know for all this he'll
44:15
bug me like like every day he'll call me and text me where's my book bro
44:22
you're gonna send that soon you know send it to morristown if they were only like the fly in the wall to what really
44:27
transpires during our conversations [Music] yeah this is just the recorded segment
44:32
and stuff that i did not edit out but uh so mannycabo.com yes that is the hub uh
44:38
so uh go there that's the mother show that is the mothership of manny cabo and obviously like people that listen to
44:43
this show they know that manny is the theme song crazy crazy uh the theme song
44:49
of the show and it was so cool to let me uh use that of course it's been the sh it's been the theme song of the show and
44:55
will continue to be the theme song of the show for as long as the show exists which hopefully is gonna be for a long
45:00
time um but uh so manny thank you so much for doing with us on this list today into your home of course you know i'm
45:06
glad you got everything back together the place looks great um it's getting there man very jealous of this like work
45:12
space that you have down here because mine is either like my couch or my bedroom office slash gym slash
45:17
recordings dude bro bro let me tell you yeah you you use what you got exactly you know you should have seen what i was doing prior to all this stuff i would
45:24
imagine yeah it was i was using a stool right i was using a stool and that
45:29
laptop there that was just salvaged that and i did all my jobs with used equipment
45:34
people let me borrow their equipment so what i'm trying to say is don't ever make excuses for your greatness you if
45:41
you really are passionate about what you want to do you'll always find a way exactly promise you that and if you
45:47
don't find a way then do something else because you're not really passionate about right 100 100 so um awesome stuff
45:53
danny again thank you so much everybody else thank you for listening thank you for listening uh greetings from
45:59
thegardenstate.com is the website greetings from thegardenstate gmail.com is the email address uh of the show uh
46:05
so if you want to reach out to us learn more about manny happy to connect you if that makes sense um but uh thank you for
46:11
listening greetings from the garcia podcast mike cam manny cabo elizabeth new jersey thank you for listening and we will catch you next time
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