Pursuing Music at 60 Going on 61

19 May Pursuing Music at 60 Going on 61

Tonight I found myself thinking deeply about what it means to still pursue music at the age of 60, going on 61.

I had just watched a video on TikTok where a young man was talking about older artists still making music, still creating, still building audiences, and still gaining attention in their 60s. And it really made me stop and think about my own journey.

Because the truth is, in this social media climate, age definitely plays a heavy role.

We live in a time where everybody is online showcasing their talent, their music, their creativity, their personality, and their image. And whether people want to admit it or not, social media is heavily youth-driven. A lot of times, people don’t hear the music first. They see the age first.

They see the gray.
They see the years.
They see the older face.
They see “that old dude.”

And sometimes they scroll past before they even really listen.

That can be discouraging.

I’ll be honest. Sometimes I forget my age in a certain way. Not that I don’t know I’m 60. I know exactly how old I am. But when I’m creating, when I’m playing my guitar, when I’m writing songs, when I’m in that zone, I don’t feel like I’m sitting there calculating age. I’m just creating. I’m just being an artist. I’m just being me.

But then social media has a way of reminding you.

I remember during the pandemic shutdown, when a lot of people were showcasing their talents online, there was a young lady named Tanjareen who had a livestream platform where artists would come on and perform. She had seen one of my clips of me playing guitar and singing, and she reached out and invited me to join.

I had never really seen anything like that before, but I checked it out and joined in. It was pretty cool. A lot of talented people were on there, and a lot of people were watching and commenting live.

I went on there a couple of times. One of the songs I performed was Prince’s “Anotherloverholenyohead.” Another one was Leo Sayer’s “You Make Me Feel Like Dancing.” While I was performing, I wasn’t really watching the comments. I was just enjoying myself. Tanjareen herself was smiling, bobbing her head, and clearly enjoying the performance.

But later on, I went back and watched the recording. That’s when I started reading the comments.

Some of them made me laugh.

People were saying things like:

“Look at Pops do his thing.”

“Pops reminds me of Frankie Beverly.”

“My mom thinks Pops is cute.”

I laughed because I knew they weren’t necessarily trying to be disrespectful. In fact, some of it was love. But it also opened my eyes.

I was in a room with a lot of young people. People in their 20s and 30s. People around my kids’ age. And in that moment, I realized how they were seeing me.

They weren’t just seeing an artist.

They were seeing an older man doing music.

And again, that’s not always a bad thing. But it is a real thing.

That is the part that gets tricky when you’re trying to continue pursuing music at this age. Because I’m not new to this. I didn’t just wake up one day at 60 and decide I wanted to play music. I’ve been playing music since I was a child. I’ve done some amazing things over the years, played in some amazing places, and shared stages and musical spaces with some amazing people, including Little Benny, James Funk, Chuck Brown, and many others.

So this is not about me suddenly trying to start from scratch.

This is about me continuing to do something that has been in me for most of my life.

Music has been part of my identity since I was young. It has carried me through different chapters, different bands, different stages, different cities, different seasons, and different versions of myself. I’ve lived enough life to know that this is not just some hobby or some temporary dream. This is part of who I am.

The difference now is that technology has given us tools we never had back then.

Today, I can record music, shoot videos, post performances, distribute songs, promote albums, reach people across the world, and build a whole creative platform from a laptop or a phone. That is something we did not have in our hands when I was in my 20s and 30s.

And I do think about that sometimes.

Man, if this kind of technology had been available when I was younger, who knows how far I could have gone with it? Who knows how many people I could have reached? Who knows what kind of audience I could have built back then if I had the same access to distribution, video, social media, streaming platforms, and digital promotion that artists have now?

Back then, you needed gatekeepers. You needed record labels. You needed radio. You needed somebody to open a door. You needed somebody to give you a shot.

Now, the door is technically in your hand.

But even with that, there is still another challenge: getting people to actually stop, listen, care, and engage.

Some people look at you and think your time has passed.

Some people look at you and think you should just be proud of what you already did.

Some people look at you and think music is a young person’s game.

Some people don’t say it out loud, but their lack of engagement says it for them.

And I’d be lying if I said that doesn’t hurt sometimes.

Because when you post music and only get a handful of likes, it can mess with your head. When you see someone else post something silly or meaningless and get thousands of views, thousands of likes, and hundreds of comments, while your music barely moves, it can be depressing.

I’ve been on YouTube for almost 20 years. I have thousands of clips posted. I’ve been on Instagram for years. I’ve posted on TikTok, Facebook, YouTube, and everywhere else. And sometimes the numbers still feel painfully small compared to the work I’ve put in.

That can make you ask yourself, “Why am I still doing this?”

And the honest answer is: because I have to.

Because music is one of the places where I still feel alive.

When I’m creating, when I’m playing, when I’m writing, when I’m recording, when I’m building something from nothing, that is one of the few spaces where I still feel connected to purpose.

So no, this is not just about chasing likes.

It’s about wanting to be heard.

It’s about wanting to be witnessed.

It’s about still having something inside of me that refuses to go quiet.

But I’ve also had to come to terms with something else.

My lane has never really been about trying to target a young audience.

I’m not trying to be 25.

I’m not trying to compete with younger artists.

I’m not trying to pretend time hasn’t passed.

My lane is different.

My lane is the grown man with the guitar.

The Go-Go soul elder.

The Bill Withers of Go-Go.

The man who lived the culture, played the music, built the archive, wrote the books, documented the history, stood on stages, carried the sound, and still has songs in him.

That is my lane.

And I’m learning that maybe I need to stop seeing my age as the thing working against me and start recognizing it as part of the story.

Because at this point, I don’t just bring music. I bring history. I bring scars. I bring experience. I bring culture. I bring memory. I bring years of surviving, observing, creating, documenting, and still standing.

That has value.

The challenge is finding the audience that understands that.

And that’s not always easy on social media.

Because my audience may not be the teenagers scrolling TikTok all day. My audience may not be the people chasing every new trend. My audience is probably somewhere in that grown-folks space. People 40, 50, 60 and up. People who understand what it means to still have dreams after life has knocked you around a little bit. People who know what it feels like to still want love, purpose, creativity, and recognition after the world starts acting like you’re supposed to fade into the background.

But finding that audience online can be difficult.

Because sometimes the very people who would appreciate what I do aren’t always the loudest people on social media. They may not comment much. They may not hit like. They may watch quietly. They may feel it but not respond. They may be out there, but the algorithm doesn’t always know how to connect us.

So that becomes the battle.

Not just creating the music, but finding the people who can actually receive it.

Still, I keep coming back to this one thought:

The dream doesn’t expire just because you get older.

The road may change.
The audience may change.
The pace may change.
The numbers may not move the way you want them to move.
The technology may be different.
The industry may be different.
The way people discover music may be completely different.

But if the music is still in you, then you still have a reason to create.

I may be 60 years old, going on 61, but I am not finished.

I still have songs in me.

I still have stories in me.

I still have a sound in me.

And maybe that is the real message tonight. Not just for me, but for anybody who feels like the world has quietly pushed them to the side because of age.

Don’t let this world convince you that your time is over just because you’re not young anymore.

They may see age.

But we know it’s experience.

They may see gray.

But we know it’s wisdom.

They may see “old.”

But we know it’s soul.

So yes, sometimes it gets discouraging. Sometimes it gets lonely. Sometimes it hurts when the engagement is low and the silence is loud. I won’t pretend otherwise.

But I’m still here.

Still playing.

Still writing.

Still recording.

Still creating.

Still believing.

Still chasing the sound in my head.

I may be older.

But I’m not finished.