Years ago I was asked to be part of a program called Mentoring USA. I said yes. I sat with kids who weren’t mine and tried to be useful to them, and I liked it more than I expected. It didn’t last long. Why? I had two kids of my own to raise in New York City, a cost of living that never lets up, and a music career full of ups and downs. I didn’t have the time to give someone else’s kid what I could barely give my own.
That program taught me something true about formal mentorship. The kind that actually changes a young person needs structure and a consistent presence. I respected it too much to fake it.
But the mentorship that shaped me into a musician never looked like that.
I was the baby of the family, which meant I had teachers everywhere I turned. My mother and father were both mentors in their own right, just for different things. My older sisters were right there in the house, showing me how to handle myself long before I knew I was being taught. My older cousins added another layer on top of that. By the time I was old enough to notice, I’d already logged years of unofficial instruction.
Not all of it was the kind you’d want to copy. I watched choices made by people close to me and learned exactly what not to do. That counts too. Sometimes the lesson isn’t “do this.” It’s “never do that,” and you carry it just as far.
Then there’s one guy I’m still friends with to this day. Back in my hometown of Manchester, Connecticut, I played in a band with him. He was a drummer too, but he also sang lead and ran the band, and from the first rehearsal I could feel he was operating on a different level than me. He didn’t put me down for it. He pushed me. Bigger fills, deeper pocket, match his intensity. One day he said something I’ve carried with me ever since.
“Always play with musicians who are better than you.”
I wrote about that moment in my book Broadway Bound and Beyond, because once it sinks in, it changes how you think about getting better at anything.
Here’s what nobody tells you about that kind of mentorship: it’s trial by fire. Musicians better than you will tell you straight up that you’re rushing, you’re dragging, you’re too loud, your feel is wrong, or you’re playing the wrong shuffle entirely. I remember going to one guy’s house specifically to get schooled on this. He sat me down and broke apart the Texas shuffle, then walked me through the other blues shuffles I needed if I wanted to play that music for real. That’s not something a method book can give you. You get it from someone who already lives inside the style, showing you with his own hands, on his own time, because he felt like it.
After I graduated from Howard University and moved to New York City in 1993, I kept chasing that same dynamic on purpose. I sought out older, more experienced musicians and made sure I was always the least experienced person around. I had to earn my place with how I played, not with what I said. They weren’t interested in chops. They cared about feel, time, and maturity.
That chase led to one of my first big gigs in New York: backing Chuck Berry. The first few songs, he kept looking over at me with that look, the one that said, "I cursed out Keith Richards, and you better believe I'll cuss you out too." I held steady and listened harder than I ever had. Somewhere around song three, something clicked. He stopped looking over. By the end of the night we were playing like we'd done it for years.
That’s what playing above your level does to you. It pulls something out of you that comfort never could. When you’re the weakest player around, something shifts. You stop thinking about what you want to play and start thinking about what the music needs.
Every mentor I've had, family, the bandleader, a stranger who taught me a shuffle in his living room, pushed me toward the same target: be as good as the people who came before me. That standard applies every time I play on a recording. I am determined to sound as fluid as Steve Ferrone. As deep as Steve Gadd. As precise as Neil Peart. Funkier than Jerome Brailey holding it down back in the day for P-Funk. As heavy as Earl Hudson driving Bad Brains, or as locked in as Fish with Fishbone. Those were the records I grew up on, and I wanted whatever I played to stand next to them.
That standard never stops applying. Watching Anika Nilles step into Neil Peart’s chair on Rush’s reunion tour this year has been a perfect live example of it. She’s not imitating him. She’s matching the standard he set and making it her own, in front of the toughest jury there is, longtime Rush fans. That’s the same fire I’m talking about, just happening in real time on a much bigger stage.
If you’re serious about building a career in musical theater, the question isn’t whether you’re ready. It’s whether you’re putting yourself around people who’ll demand more from you than you’ve ever given. That’s where the growth lives.
I wrote Broadway Bound and Beyond for musicians ready to think about their careers differently. Not just how to play better, but how to get in, stay in, and build a career that lasts.
Get your copy at broadwayboundbook.com. The online course is coming this fall.