MOISES the MUSIC MAN

"Why I choose to be out - even as an R&B artist."

by Garrett Pattiani
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Independent breakout recording artist Moises recently set the Las Vegas airwaves on fire with his #hotaf single “Baby,” now available to stream or buy on all major digital music outlets.  Moises has recently moved to LA to pursue his music career. We asked him to tell us a bit more about who he is, why he’s independent, and what the message is behind his hit.

"Why I choose to be out even as an R&B artist:

It can be difficult to make it in music as an out musician, and this is especially true in the Hip-Hop and R&B genres.  I am frequently asked why I chose to be an out artist.  So, here's why:

My music is about sharing my life’s lessons and experiences in a way that I hope connects with my listeners in a real way.  I don’t gloss over what hurts, what feels good, what I love, what I hope for, and what terrifies me.  I believe that people are able to connect what is real in their life with the truth in my songs.  I approach music as the expression of everything an artist is and hope to convey that expression in a meaningful way, so I really don’t hold back.

A big part of that comes from my own life.  I grew up involved in my family’s church and found a deep sense of connection with people, but I knew that the connection wasn’t real.  During that time in my life, I was still in the closet and it hurt knowing that those I cared about the most didn’t know who I was.  I found that it was impossible to be performing on stage while still trying to hide me.  In hiding myself, I was also hiding my passion, and by extension, the emotion in my music.

For me, coming out allowed the real me to connect with my loved ones in ways that I never thought possible.  After that, I decided to never hide who I am again.  I feel that this is why people are able to connect and really feel what I write my songs about.

Even after coming out, people’s expectations of me often still don’t match who I am.  I do feel that a part of this is because of my racial and cultural heritage.  My family moved to Los Angeles from Honduras shortly before I was born meant that I grew up surrounded by Latino culture, and so a big part of me identifies very closely with my Honduran heritage.  However, my appearance matches the slave history of Honduras, and I also identify as black.  Living my life at that the intersection of multiple cultures, heritages, and identities for me means that the stereotypes, generalizations, and assumptions that people make about me are often completely wrong.  

I’ve been told multiple times that in music I should just pick one thing about me and make my music all about that one perspective.  I’ve also been told that releasing songs in Spanish will ruin my R&B career.  I’ve been told that being out will make it impossible to start a career and that I should wait a few years to come out when I already have enough fans to make it safe.  I’ve been told that it will just be too confusing for your audience if you don’t pick a category – that feels entirely too much like a closet for me, and so I refuse.  I call bullshit on all of that.  

I know my fans are real people, who want to connect to a real musician, have no problem accepting me being every part of me, and they know for damn sure that I accept and love every part of who they are.  This has been a difficult journey but being able to say that about the people who love my music is my biggest motivation to move forward.  This is also why I am an independent artist.  I owe it to you #TeamMoises, as much as I owe it to myself, to refuse to be told who I am or who you are; or how to present myself, what you like, how to live my life, what to be honest about with you, or how to express myself to you.  

This comes through on “Baby” because, that story is from my life, what I learned there is that cheating isn’t always just about someone being naughty and that often in those situations there is no clear right and wrong.  But more than that, even with deep feelings between people, it is hard to end up with something real when it started with something fake.  Don’t be surprised when you get deceived because of your own lies.  It’s a love song without a happy ending, it isn’t about judging anyone in any corner of a love triangle.  The love was real, and no one was wrong, no one meant to hurt anyone in any of that.  But, everyone was a victim of each other because none of those connections were honest.

I will continue telling my story, and I’d love to connect with you and hear yours.   Check back here and find me on social media to keep up with my adventures."