Derek T. Lewis was born into music royalty. His mom, his pops, they were part of the Motown era in music, soul music, R&B music, real music. Since day one, he has been a part of that type of fabric and foundation. But he never leveraged that to gain an advantage in life. Everything he has accomplished in Hollywood and in music has been on his own merit. He takes the path of most resistance. He never takes the hand that earns everything. When you are in movies like Creed and Perfect Murder, when you have an IMDB resume that is a mile long, that comes from putting in the work and trusting the process and bedding on yourself. The greatest thing about Derek T. Lewis that you cannot coach, that you must possess on your own, is his ability to believe in the unthinkable. Derek T. Lewis believes that he can fly to limitless heights. There is no ceiling in his world. His mindset, his belief and his trust into his craft is unquestioned. Derek T. Lewis, House of Hits, Vinion Serves, Dorian, Radio Pushers. Let's get it with the go. People we are live inside the House of Hits studio right now. We are in Miami. Man, it's a great time to be alive right now. I tell you that much history. You can tell a lot about history. People study history forever. They say if you study history, it will tell you what the future is. When I work with artists and I see them in their infancy, it's beautiful. They are an incubate of life, incubate of growth. They make a song, they put it out there, they distribute it and they figure out things along the way. They don't know where their life is going to take them. They don't know where their career is going to take them. They have a regular job, whatever. But they are constantly fertilizing their plant and nurturing to make sure it blooms and blossoms into that beautiful rose going through concrete. Shout out to Park. That was the name of his poetry book. Derek T. Lewis comes from music royalty. His family, his mom and dad were part of two historic groups in R&B music. He was born into it. Never took advantage of it. He knows what it's like to see success at a very high level. But he's writing his own story. He's writing his own legacy. Acting is hard. Doing music is difficult. Convincing people that you are great and you deserve to be there requires a different type of iron stomach. You have to be able to deal with rejection. He's been in a lot of films. He's been rejected for a lot of films. He believes in his path. I love that about Derek. Derek life isn't an accident. Just because you come from something doesn't mean that you are, that you will become it. The shadow of his greatness is from him, not from his parents or anything else. Everything he's achieved, he's done it without leaning on the shoulders of someone else. And that's what I appreciate about Derek. I'm honored to be speaking with him. I've known this gentleman for over 1400 days. When you break it down, that's a long time. We've spoken on so many levels. We've spoken for hours on the phone. When it wasn't about money, it was just about life. So that connectivity is bigger than somebody paying $200 a month, $300 a month. He can truly say, John, this is my brother. And that's why I love most about radio pushers. Everybody considers me the big homie. I consider Derek a great guy, one of my brothers. His path, his book is still being written. We got a few more chapters to write. I'm about 10 more, I think. And then we're going to get to the end. It's going to be beautiful. But I'm super honored to be having him here in the House of Hits. This podcast, this interview sponsored by Hype Fresh Magazine, one of the largest aggregators and traffic machines for journalism on Apple News and Google News and Mountain Valley Water. Derek Chilu is welcome. Thank you, John. It's a pleasure. You know how to give that, that did the intro, right? Absolutely, man. It's been a long time. Indeed. It's too long. It's about time. Let me ask you a question, Derek. You love heart. You got your heart broken, right? Yeah. You got your heart broken, right? I mean, who hasn't? How do you process heartache? Through my creativity. And I think as you get older, you learn how to navigate through certain situations, regardless of what they are. And you use that as a lesson and apply it to whichever path you want to take. So for me, I utilize my creativity to get through those types of situations, you know what I mean? So for anybody that's out there that may be going through, that may have gone through that type of thing before, I mean, just tap into what makes you great. Tap into some of the things that make you, that create, that sums up who you are to really navigate through that. The elation you was in, it propelled you to create a song, right? Well, that was years ago when I wrote Selfish Pride. That was the, I guess the the result of said relationship, it brought me to write that. But I think I didn't realize the impact it was going to have. What impact did that? People reaching out to me saying, hey, man, like I've gone through that before, or someone leaving a comment on YouTube talking about, she was looking for a song to help her cope with a guy who was not really treating her the best. And she found my music video and felt it helped her heal. And that meant a lot to me because I'm still a relatively new artist at the time. And to be able to have an impact on someone's life, I don't care if it goes from, if it was a million people, or it's just that one person. If my art can help you cope through something and you can come on the other side of it, I did my job. And I think us as creators were put on earth for a reason. And that's to make people feel something. I don't care what it is. I don't care if you're an athlete, I don't care if you're an actor, a recording artist, whatever it is, a painter, whatever, we have to make people feel something. If you can make the people feel something, then they really believe in what you do. What, how did she make you feel to create that type of song? What heartache did that bring you? What did she do? The lyrics before itself, it wasn't the best. I'll be honest, it wasn't the best. And it was tough, really tough. But explain tough. Go back to that spot. The reason I'm asking, because there's different points of origin, Ernest Hemingway committed suicide. I read about, I started reading Ernest Hemingway when I was in second grade. Four years born. My mom used to be worried because she thought, what's wrong with him? He's a black kid, we don't do that. What's wrong? But I used to be fascinated by the speed of his writings. He was always futuristic. The point of origin of pain is very significant to the ending in a person's life. For sure. What pain does she create for you? Pain was like, I guess, not so much of the rejection, but just the act of, you know, not, I guess, not considering feelings or not considering, you know, wow, you know, we should have done it this way or that way. And it's like, okay, that was the feeling of it. But again, the creativity, and as I was saying before in the beginning of the interview, was using that creativity to help me cope through that and then take it and really placing a bet on myself of saying, okay, now you have six months to record this. Now you had, now you had, now you wrote this, now you have to go out and do it. And that was a bet I made on myself. As a matter of fact, today is the six year anniversary of that record selfish pride. And I'm proud of the fact that that propelled me to do even greater things I didn't even think was even possible. And I'm sitting here with you now in the state of the art facility in Miami, Florida, you know. Let me ask you a question. A lot of times I do interviews, I think about my life. Because you say things that trigger things. I remember I lied to a woman, told her what age I was, I lie, I exaggerated. I wanted her that bad. She thought I was older and I wasn't. I never got bought a fossil watch. I bought a caulk and I shirt, all kinds of stuff. Going back and forth, lied about it all. And then she found out and she said, I can't deal with a lie. She didn't appreciate, I thought she would appreciate the risk I took. It wasn't that. Sometimes I said, think about me and that, and that light. I think about, you know, those things that say, I always teach people, learn from your mistakes, always be authentic, no matter what, people can't accept you for who you are. Don't worry about it. Don't worry about it. Love is love. You still think about that? That particular situation? Yeah. No. It doesn't. No, I don't, because I'm all about moving forward, progression and what's next, you know what I mean? So, if you're, I guess if you're going to be, that's also going to keep you stagnant too. If you're constantly harping on that one thing, because you want to move ahead. You want to see, okay, where can I go to now? Where can I go to now? So, if you keep holding on to some of those things, that's going to not, it's going to keep, it's almost like magnetic almost, where it's like, yeah, you've seen the cartoons, you get exactly. So, you want to be able to move on from it. And you know what? And if you could look back at it and say, hey, all right, kid, you're doing all right for yourself. And sometimes I do that, where it's like, if I may not be having like the best day or whatever, and then I look back at some, whether it's, you know, online or whatever, I'm looking through some old files or from looking through a notebook that I'm just like, wow, or emails of when I first started becoming an actor, where my resume was blank. Like I look at those things and I look about the steps that I took, and even with some of those detours and maybe some of the steps back that I took. And I realized, you know, it's all about progression. So, for me, that's what it's all about. When you were in the set of Creed, right? Michael B. Jordan, all those people, explain that energy. How did you feel? It was interesting that now Mr. Jordan and Mr. Sloan was not on set the day I was there. So, it was Wood Harris, oh God, Andre Ward, of course, Ryan Cooler, director, he was on set. And Tony Blue, who was a British actor who fought on Michael B. Jordan at the end of the first Creed. So, I was on set with those guys and to be in that spot, to be amongst, you know, Ryan Cooler, in my opinion, is one of the best directors around right now. And he's really doing some incredible things. And to be, and I said, listen, man, I'm a Rocky fan, first of all, I love Rocky. You're not a Rocky fan. Who's not a Rocky? You know, but I mean, literally, like I love the Rocky story about redemption and all about the underdog and always fighting from underneath. That's Philly. You know what I mean? And for me, you know, to be in that space and to be in that spot, I thought was really, really cool. And I thought that was a moment, you know, in my career, it was like, okay, this is good. But now it's a shift. Yeah, but now it's starting to shift a little more as far as little things. So, to have been on set, I love Andre Ward. You know, he's one of the greatest boxers. Yeah, Andre Ward, and just to be able to share that stage with him and to be on set with Wood Harris and I mean, the who's who of the films that he's been in, you know, above the rim, you know what I mean? The list goes on and on. So, to be comfortable in that spot, you know, I thought the energy was great. I loved it. It was fun. It doesn't seem like work. And if you really love what you do, and you mentioned earlier about rejection and as far as with acting, as far as going, you know, auditioning for this and this and this and you're being told no, but you appreciate those moments of being as okay, it's just great. Now we have to move on to the next. So, the energy was awesome. You have great parents. You were raised extremely well. You're very educated. You speak extremely well. Thank you. What do you love now? What do you love in your life? What do you love the most? What's most valuable? Most value to me is family. Right now. Family is really important to me. What part of the family? Everybody. And I mean, and I cherish, and there's everybody in my family has a like mom, dad, mom, but my dad passed away 12 years ago now. But you know, I miss him every day. You know what I mean? But quick point. You're that past over a decade ago. What voice from him do you hear sometimes? Keep going. How does it sound? I don't know. It's just a what do you hear? Just keep going, man. Just keep going. Keep going. And you call me D all the time. So you hear that? Yeah. So when do you hear the most? When? Times where I could just be sitting and I could, I may have a writer's block if I'm writing. I can be, you know, from giving for an audition because now auditions are done from home. Welcome to a post pandemic. But that's where we are now. But if sometimes it's like, you know, if you're having a bad day, or if you're having, if you're getting frustrating, we all get frustrated. But just that little keep going, keep going. So I hear, at times I do hear that. And, you know, he never pressured me to do this when he was alive. As a matter of fact, when he passed away, he didn't even know I was in this, because I kept it to myself for a while. No one. And, you know, that was just one thing I wish I would have told him. But I know he's watching and I know he's at the best seat in the house of seeing his son, you know, do some really cool stuff like sitting with you right now. So appreciate that. Your pops been alive to you. Yeah, there was a, to get personal and there was a splitting of the ways for a while and nobody's perfect. But I don't really think about those bad times. I think about all the good. That's all I think about at this point, as far as the fun, some of the things that, you know, just little things that that happened, you know, when you're young and everything. And those are the things that I think about the most is when I think about my dad. And just now it's like it's my turn to move forward. You accomplished actor, major, quarter, and artist. You funded everything yourself. Never got alone from anybody. You've been hustling. You don't have to. You don't have to do none of this. That's crazy. But you're here. I'm glad you're here. Thank you. I love you, bro. Back at you, man. I love you too. You know what I'm saying? You put in a lot of work. Don't never take what your dad taught you for granted. Keep, gotta keep going. I want you to always remember that. Always remember, keep going. My dad still keeps a picture of his baby brother who drunk gasoline by accident and he died. He was a little kid. And my pop still keeping his wallet. I said, I said, Dad, you don't even remember. He said, I always think about what I would have remembered. Right. True story. Yeah. Thanks for being on the podcast today. Got it, man. Going to Booth, Ribbon Down, man. House of Hits, Hype Fresh, Dairy T. Lewis, 99.78.
