Looking back at Musically Speaking with Luis and Pedro—and a chapter of my creative life I’m still proud of.
Every once in a while, I find myself looking backward instead of forward. That's not always easy for me. I'm usually thinking about the next song, the next article, the next project, or whatever idea has captured my attention that week. But recently, I found myself going through some old episodes of a podcast I created several years ago called Musically Speaking with Luis and Pedro, and I was reminded of just how much I loved making that show.
Listening today feels different than it did when we were creating it. Some episodes make me laugh. Others remind me of conversations and moments I'd completely forgotten. And a few have become something I don't think either of us realized we were creating at the time: a little time capsule of one of the strangest periods the music industry—and the rest of the world—has ever experienced.
So, rather than letting those episodes continue quietly sitting in an archive, I thought I'd introduce—or perhaps reintroduce—you to Musically Speaking.
Before We Were Podcast Partners
Pedro and I didn't start as close friends planning to create a show together. We were musical acquaintances. He hosted a music countdown podcast, and I was an independent artist whose songs would occasionally appear on his countdown. Whenever one of my records was featured, Pedro would sometimes invite me onto the show to talk about the song. Those appearances gave us a chance to get to know one another, and somewhere along the way we discovered something pretty simple: we really enjoyed talking about music together.
In early 2019, we decided to build something around that chemistry. The concept wasn't complicated. We wanted to sit down and talk about music in every possible way we experienced it. Music in movies. Music on television. Radio. Artists. Albums. The industry. Awards shows. Trends. New releases. Old records. If music was somehow involved, it was fair game. Our tagline captured the idea pretty well: “Where we talk anything and everything, musically speaking of course.”
Pedro was based in New York and I was in Florida, so most of the podcast was recorded remotely. That seems completely normal today, but this was before remote conversations became such a routine part of everyone's lives. We figured out a workflow that worked, hit Record, and started having the kinds of conversations we'd probably have been having anyway. The only difference was that now other people could listen.
When Two Microphones Were in the Same Room
Once a year, Pedro would come down to Florida and stay with me for a few days, usually over a weekend. Those visits became something I looked forward to because we could finally do something we couldn't normally do: record Musically Speaking sitting across from each other.
We'd set up a table in my studio with two microphones, one on each side, and batch-record several episodes while he was in town. Those weekends weren't only about recording. There were shared meals, jokes, conversations when the microphones were off, music movies we'd watch together, and plenty of time simply hanging out. Somewhere in between all of that, we'd sit down at that table, turn on the microphones and talk about music.
There's something about those episodes that I still have trouble explaining. The energy was different. Our voices were a little louder. The laughter came easier. We interrupted each other more. You could hear how excited we were about whatever we happened to be discussing. Even now, if I listen to an episode without checking when it was recorded, I can usually tell whether Pedro was sitting across from me in Florida or talking to me remotely from New York.
Technology allowed us to create the podcast from two different states, and I'm grateful for that. But those weekends reminded me that there's still something special about two people being in the same room, feeding off each other's energy and forgetting for a little while that there's even a microphone between them.
Then the World Changed
When we started Musically Speaking in 2019, neither of us could have imagined what was coming. Our podcast ended up landing directly in the middle of COVID, and suddenly many of the things we normally talked about were changing right in front of us.
Concerts disappeared almost overnight. Artists who depended on touring suddenly couldn't stand in front of an audience. Online concerts became a legitimate way of performing because people simply couldn't gather in arenas anymore. Major awards shows, including the Grammys, had to rethink what an awards show even looked like without a traditional audience. Artists, record companies, venues, broadcasters and fans were all trying to figure out how music fit into a world where everyone had been told to stay home.
And Pedro and I talked about it.
That's one of the things I appreciate most when I revisit the archive today. We weren't looking back at COVID with the benefit of hindsight. We were experiencing those changes alongside everyone else and discussing them as they happened. We didn't know which changes would last, which ones would disappear once the world reopened, or how permanently the experience would affect the music industry.
Listening to those episodes today sometimes feels like time travel. You hear us reacting to developments that seem almost historical now, but at the time they were simply the strange new reality we were all trying to understand. Inadvertently, Musically Speaking became a running record of how two music lovers experienced an industry adapting in real time.
I think COVID also contributed to the audience we found during that period. People were home. They had time to listen. Podcasts, livestreams and other forms of digital connection became more important because so many of the ways we normally connected with one another had temporarily disappeared. We had more ears listening, but more importantly, we had no shortage of things to talk about.
Three Conversations I Want to Share Again
There are plenty of episodes in the Musically Speaking archive, but I don't want to hand you a giant list and tell you to figure out where to start. Instead, I picked three episodes that represent some of my favorite memories of creating the show. All three were recorded during Pedro's visits to Florida, which probably explains why they still stand out to me.
The first two are Albums of a Lifetime, Parts 1 and 2, recorded in late 2019. The premise was exactly what the title suggests: sit down and talk about albums that had stayed with us throughout our lives. What I appreciate about those conversations now is something I've probably lost a little of in the streaming era. We weren't talking about playlists or individual singles. We were talking about albums—complete bodies of work that we had lived with long enough to have opinions, memories and stories attached to them.
Albums of a Lifetime — Part 1, Episode 32
[LISTEN TO THE EPISODE]
Albums of a Lifetime — Part 2, Episode 33
[LISTEN TO THE EPISODE]
The third episode took that energy and opened the conversation to some of our friends. R&B of the 90s vs. Today — Round Table Discussion gave us a chance to do exactly what music fans have been doing forever: sit around together and argue about music. We compared eras, talked about how R&B had changed, shared opinions and probably disagreed more than a few times. It was less structured than some of our traditional episodes, but that's part of what made it work. It felt like the conversations music lovers have when they're sitting around a table and nobody is particularly interested in being the first person to leave.
R&B of the 90s vs. Today — Round Table Discussion
[LISTEN TO THE EPISODE]
Listening to these episodes also reminds me of something I miss about the way I used to experience music. Making the podcast gave me a reason to really listen. If Pedro and I were going to spend an episode discussing an album, an artist, or something happening in the industry, I had to pay attention. Music wasn't simply playing in the background while I did something else. I was listening because I wanted to have something meaningful to say about it.
When the Conversation Ended
Eventually, Musically Speaking came to an end. Pedro made the decision to step away from music for personal reasons, and I respected that. He was comfortable turning the podcast over to me, so technically there was nothing stopping me from continuing. The show existed. I had the equipment. I knew how to produce it. I knew how to find things to talk about.
But I was afraid to do it alone.
For a while, I probably viewed that as me failing to continue something we had built. Looking back now, I understand it differently. What I loved wasn't simply having a podcast. I loved having that podcast with Pedro. The conversation was the show. The chemistry between us, our different opinions, the laughter, the disagreements and the friendship developing around those microphones were as important as whatever topic happened to be written down for that week's episode.
Could I have created another podcast by myself? Absolutely. But it wouldn't have been Musically Speaking with Luis and Pedro, and I think some part of me understood that even then.
I'm Glad We Hit Record
Creative projects have strange lives. Some continue for decades. Some evolve into something completely different. Others belong to a particular combination of people, circumstances and time, and when those things change, the project ends with them. That doesn't make the work any less meaningful.
I'm still proud of Musically Speaking. More importantly, I'm grateful for what exists inside that archive. There are conversations about music I might otherwise have forgotten, reactions to an extraordinary period in history, opinions I may or may not still agree with, and the sound of two people genuinely enjoying each other's company while talking about something they both loved.
I don't know if Pedro and I will ever sit across from each other behind two microphones again. If he called tomorrow and said, “Let's do another episode,” I'd probably have the microphones set up before he finished booking his flight. But I'm also okay if that chapter remains exactly where it is. We made something I genuinely enjoyed creating, and years later I can press Play and immediately find myself sitting at that table again.
Maybe that's one of the unexpected gifts of recording our conversations. We weren't only making a podcast. Without realizing it, we were preserving a friendship, a shared love of music and a small piece of history.
And I'm really glad we hit Record.
