We’re excited to introduce you to the always interesting and insightful Brad Gilmore. We hope you’ll enjoy our conversation with Brad below.

Hi Brad, thanks for joining us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

I knew very late in life that I had a creative gene or even a creative desire. It was in all honesty around junior year in high school, where I first started to feel confident in myself and explore the other cake mobilities that I might possess. That is when my best friend Avery and I really ramped up this idea of a hip-hop group and band, and I started to pursue music, I was 15 and 16 years old wrapping in local venues with people twice my age on a school night no less, but it set me on the right path for my creative endeavors

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

So for people who might not know who I am, or have never heard of me before my name is Brad Gilmore, I jokingly go by the nickname, the boat, the best of all time, because I truly feel that I give my best in every field that I lend my talents to. As mentioned, I am a musician and a rapper, I’m a television host for the CW affiliate here in Houston. I’m a radio host with the ESPN affiliate here in Houston. I am the longest tenured announcer of Booker T’s Reality of Wrestling promotion as well as I can tribute as a writer and producer, for that television show that is syndicated throughout the country. I am a podcast one of which is with the aforementioned Booker T on a YouTube channel where we have close to 800,000 subscribers. And I think what set me apart from others to answer the question and not be too self-aggrandizing is that I just go for it, if something interests me and I like it, and I enjoy talking about it and thinking about it then I go for it. That’s what led me to in my 30th year around the sun putting out a brand new album , riding my third book getting a television deal and expanding my personality across Houston with which I want to make a major major media market. Also, personally, this last year has been a lot of growth for me as a man and as a husband to my beautiful wife.

How can we best help foster a strong, supportive environment for artists and creatives?

I’m gonna sound like a broken record on this one, but I feel like it all starts in the school system. During the COVID-19 pandemic, when everything was on pause in my entertainment career, I decided to lend my talents to the public school system, and I was an educator for a short period of time at Aldine 🐴, senior high school And I saw what the impact of expanding students average knowledge was when it came to exposure to the creative arts. And these kids were in the later stages of their academic career, and some of them were so talented, and just discovering their talents, for the first time, like I wasn’t their age, but I feel we need to value Creative currency the same way we value monetary currency. We need to look at creative jobs in the same way we look at blue-collar and white collar jobs. There’s no difference to me in the economic ecosystem so long as there is the capitalistic rules of supply and demand to play. People demand more creative arts and there’s equity in those creative arts. Then we should not make our youth feel as though it’s a superfluous dream and you need to think about selling staplers and office supplies for a living not there’s anything wrong with that, but we should nurture it encourage our youth to follow whatever passion maybe.

Let’s talk about resilience next – do you have a story you can share with us?

So I’ve been a lifelong wrestling fan, and an opportunity came up to interview for the position with Booker T at his Reality Of Wrestling promotion at the new ring announcer. I sent in my résumé and letter of interest, and I received a call back for an audition. I went to bed that night, knowing that in a couple of days I was going to meet my idol, and I was going to have a shot to get into the Wrestling business. When I woke up two days later the day of the audition, I realize something was wrong. I was suffering from a bout of Bell’s Palsy. Yes, left half of my face completely paralyzed in normal facial expressions and functions were not easy for me if possible at all. But I knew this was my one opportunity and I went and interviewed with Booker T showed up anyway did not allow this condition to stop me from pursuing my dream and 11 years later I’m still here to tell the story about it.

Contact Info:

• Website: theboatbradgilmore.com