July 9, 2025 • 13 mins
Interview with Michael Antonio Thornton from bOydestiNy - The Culture News
Mark as Played
Transcript
Episode Transcript
Available transcripts are automatically generated. Complete accuracy is not guaranteed.
Speaker 1 (00:00):
Ladies and gentlemen, Good afternoon, Welcome on the Culture News.
My name is David Serebro and I have the pleasure
to have to den I.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
How with you on the Culture News.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
A wonderful, wonderful artist. His name is Michael Antonio Thornton,
but he's mostly known as the great musical artist called
Boy Destiny. Let me spell it out for you. D
oh hy d e st I and why boy Destiny?
Only in the world.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We are so happy to have him today on the show.
He's going to talk to us not only about all
the great things he has done, but also about his
new track called.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Love Is Forever.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And indeed Love Is Forever.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Right now is the one and only Michael Antonio Thornton
over the phone with us. Michael, how are you today?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Fine? Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
I am so appreciative and grateful for you having me
on your show.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Well, Michael, it's really a pleasure and an honor to
have you, so thank you to you for taking the
time with us. So the first thing I would like
to ask you, can you tell us where are you're
from and how did you start music?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:13):
I was originally born in the northeast of the US,
specifically in Hartford, Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I was born.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
There, and as I grew up, I got involved with
different types of instrumentation. At age five, I started playing
bass string bass, which is remarkable because if you think
about the string bass in an orchestra, it's much taller
than a five year old, and so I had to
(01:43):
accommodate and adjust to that.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
And then later in.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Life, by the time I was in middle school, I
started playing the trumpet, and then the organ and the piano,
and I really had a love for music as I
was going through learning all the different types of instruments.
As a teenager, I became a part of something called
the Stinton Teenage Jazz Band, which was started by mister
(02:08):
Tony Williams, a very renowned saxophonist from the Philadelphia area.
And as I participated in the Stinton Teenage Jazz Band,
I started taking jazz piano lessons and working with some
great Philadelphia jazz artists.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
By the time I was in college.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
A little bit after college, actually, I had an opportunity
to join up with Philadelphia's renowned Pieces of a Dream,
which is a very renowned smooth jazz group. They've been
around for years well over twenty years and their music
is all over the airwaves on the Smooth Jazz Radio CE.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So I got.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
To join that group and to tour with them, to
tour with them both in the United States and outside
of the United States. I think I've been to every
state in the US at one time or another. During
some of those tours, I got to share the stage
with a lot of artists.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
During those touring.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Days of Pieces of a Dream, I got to share
the stage with the great Bill Withers, and not only
did we open the show for Bill Withers, but we
also got to play behind him as his band, So
that was a unique opportunity, and also many others. So
when I was with Pieces of a Dream, I got
to play with the stage of Patti LaBelle and Cherrelle
(03:36):
Alexander O'Neill, which is affiliated with Prince, the Great artist Prince.
So I've had a lot of experiences within the music
industry over the since the time I have been involved
with it. So I've been very fortunate in that regard
and very blessed.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And indeed, you have a beautiful career, and you mentioned
some very important musicians and and a lot of various genres,
I should say so. So now fast forwarding to your
new very new single called Love Is Forever. So how
(04:18):
that song was born? What is the story? And I
would ask also what was the process of making it?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Okay, So, my history as boy Destiny started in around
two thousand and a, two thousand and nine, and at
that time there's a there's a little backstory, and that
backstory is that I was a crazy Harry Potter fan.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
I don't know if you are.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
A Harry Potter fan, but I had read all of
the novels, the Harry Potter novels, I had seen the movies,
and I was kind of crazy about Harry Potter and
all of things associated for he Potter. So in the
era around the twenty ten mark, I started working on
(05:05):
this song called the Emma Watson Song, which was dedicated
to the act the actress that.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Is in Harry Potter.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
And that kind of started my affiliate affiliation with that
franchise because that song Emma Watson on YouTube went viral.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Everybody went crazy over it because.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
He was You don't really see see a lot of
dedication songs to specific celebrities, especially you don't see.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
A lot of rap rap that genre.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Dedication songs to celebrities, so that was kind of unique.
So come several years later, after making attempts to promote
that that song and that album, which was called the
Modern Times album that brought us up to the modern
era here today, and going back about a year and
(05:59):
a half, I started coming up.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
With the music for Love Is Forever.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
The driving force for it is hard to say because
there's a lot more driving force behind the lyrics than
there was in the creation of the song. I started
creating the song literally right where I'm sitting. I'm sitting
in my Billiard's room at my house. Literally this is
my Billiard's room. I'm looking at the pool table, and
I had bought a lot of equipment that Christmas and
(06:26):
I had it all on this table that I'm sitting at,
and I.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Started working with Logic.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
I had worked with Logic before, but I had bought
some new keyboards and started working on some new material
and I came up with the music first, which is interesting.
The process of songwriting is very variable between individuals, but
for me that particular time, but not all the time,
but that particular time, it started out with the music.
(06:53):
I came up with the drum beat first, which was
done on an MPC two thousand. I'm very old school
when it comes to drummers. I like NBC three thousands
and NPC two thousands. So I wrote the beat first,
and then right across from this table, I had my
acoustic Yamaha piano and I started playing to the beat
as it was playing and coming out with ideas, and
(07:15):
actually the chords that you hear and the piano introduction
that you hear and love is forever was the first
thing that came to my fingers as I sat across
from the drum machine on the piano and started playing
and accompanying the drums. That line that is the introductory
piano line is the first thing that my fingers and
(07:37):
my brain heard. It just as an inspiration. It's the
music inspired. The beat inspired it, and I just laid
my fingers on the piano and started playing that piano line,
that little introduction line, and all of the harmonic lines
that follow for the piano that follow throughout the rest
of the song.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
It just all came.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Out naturally, and fortunately I was recording it all at
the same time on the logic. And then once I
recorded that I went back and listened to what I
have recorded, so that included a little bit of bass
in the left hand and the piano and the chords
and the right hand on the piano. And once I
had the basic foundation established from just the inspiration of
(08:21):
the music and the beat and the sound of the
acoustic piano, I then sat back and sat on my
couch and listened to it. And as I listened to it,
the concept of love and love is forever came to me.
Now I don't I would love to have a nice
story for you, like it was because of my lost
love from my graduate school days, my girlfriend from China
(08:45):
who had to leave the country to go back to
her homeland, and then I missed her so much that
that concept of the love and the bond we had
stuck with me, and that was the first thing that
came to my mind, and then I came up.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
With these wonderful lyrics. But that was not really the case.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
It probably subconsciously could have been the case because I
was very attached to her, and when she had to
go back to China, that pretty much was very sad
for me to see the fact that she had to go.
But I know she had to go because she had
to take care of her mother and her father and
her homeland, and that was very important too. But I
always felt that we stayed connected. So and in a
(09:24):
sense we can surmise perhaps that that subconsciously, that connection
that I had with my my girlfriend from graduate school,
and the love that we shared in that relationship probably
was there and will always be there for the rest
of my life because it was a bond. It was
a kind of really unbreakable bond that we shared, and
(09:46):
somewhere in the writing of those lyrics, I'm sure that
was the impetus and that was the driving force behind
those words.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
Well, indeed, it's a beautiful story about these great news
song of yours called love Ea is Forever. So before
we start to say goodbye to each other and we
start to play your beautiful song, what is next for you?
What are your next project and what is your message
to our audience before we play your music?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Okay, so a couple of things.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
What's coming up next in terms of that first area,
I'm going to of course be writing new music. I
have a song, kind of Latin Reggaeton styled song that
I'm dedicating to a friend of mine Erica that I've
been working on, and I want to finish working on
that in my studio downstairs and finish that off and
(10:40):
release that as a single.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
But even before I release that single, there's some material
from the Love Is Forever Saw an album.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
One song, a song called I Need Your Loving, which
has been getting a lot of traction streaming traction even
without any type of marketing. I'm not really marketing it,
but it's still getting traction and a lot of people
are listening to it. So I may release that as
the next the next single from that album sometime in
(11:07):
August or September, and then further in the future the
song Erica, which I'm working on downstairs in the studio.
I'm gonna finish those tracks up. And one other thing
I might do under a different pseudonym is because of
my smooth jazz background, I write a lot of smooth
jazz songs. I've published over fifty smooth jazz songs, So
(11:30):
I might introduce myself as a new smooth jazz artist,
but it won't be under Boy Destiny, which is a
more of a pop R and B artist, And so
that's gonna be happening as well. And then lastly, in
terms of a message to your your listening community, I
would tell them that you have to have a love
(11:53):
for what you're doing and a passion for your songwriting,
and not to be dismayed by the fact that maybe
you're not on all the major radio stations, and that
you can't get your music on all the medium stations,
and you may not be able to get on all
the hot playlists. Don't let that be your driving force.
Just do it for the love of the music, and
(12:15):
you can't go wrong.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And you are absolutely right, and we appreciate your your
great works and your music and your your generosity. We're
so happy to have you today with this new track
code Love Is Forever.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
We have these.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Phenomenal autists named Michael Antonio Thornton from The Boy Destiny.
Boy Destiny is one word and there is a capital
oh and a capitol and boy Destiny. Ladies and gentlemen,
my name is David. So we had the pleasure to
have to tell my heart with you on the Culture
News wonderful artists Michael Antonio Thornton from The Boy Destiny
(12:57):
and we are so happy toure is new song called
Love Is forever, right now, and I outred you stay
tune with us
Ladies and gentlemen, Good afternoon, Welcome on the Culture News.
My name is David Serebro and I have the pleasure
to have to den I.
Speaker 2 (00:07):
How with you on the Culture News.
Speaker 1 (00:09):
A wonderful, wonderful artist. His name is Michael Antonio Thornton,
but he's mostly known as the great musical artist called
Boy Destiny. Let me spell it out for you. D
oh hy d e st I and why boy Destiny?
Only in the world.
Speaker 2 (00:30):
We are so happy to have him today on the show.
He's going to talk to us not only about all
the great things he has done, but also about his
new track called.
Speaker 3 (00:40):
Love Is Forever.
Speaker 2 (00:42):
And indeed Love Is Forever.
Speaker 1 (00:45):
Right now is the one and only Michael Antonio Thornton
over the phone with us. Michael, how are you today?
Speaker 3 (00:52):
Fine? Thank you so much.
Speaker 4 (00:54):
I am so appreciative and grateful for you having me
on your show.
Speaker 1 (00:59):
Well, Michael, it's really a pleasure and an honor to
have you, so thank you to you for taking the
time with us. So the first thing I would like
to ask you, can you tell us where are you're
from and how did you start music?
Speaker 3 (01:12):
Okay?
Speaker 4 (01:13):
I was originally born in the northeast of the US,
specifically in Hartford, Connecticut.
Speaker 3 (01:21):
I was born.
Speaker 4 (01:22):
There, and as I grew up, I got involved with
different types of instrumentation. At age five, I started playing
bass string bass, which is remarkable because if you think
about the string bass in an orchestra, it's much taller
than a five year old, and so I had to
(01:43):
accommodate and adjust to that.
Speaker 3 (01:45):
And then later in.
Speaker 4 (01:46):
Life, by the time I was in middle school, I
started playing the trumpet, and then the organ and the piano,
and I really had a love for music as I
was going through learning all the different types of instruments.
As a teenager, I became a part of something called
the Stinton Teenage Jazz Band, which was started by mister
(02:08):
Tony Williams, a very renowned saxophonist from the Philadelphia area.
And as I participated in the Stinton Teenage Jazz Band,
I started taking jazz piano lessons and working with some
great Philadelphia jazz artists.
Speaker 3 (02:26):
By the time I was in college.
Speaker 4 (02:30):
A little bit after college, actually, I had an opportunity
to join up with Philadelphia's renowned Pieces of a Dream,
which is a very renowned smooth jazz group. They've been
around for years well over twenty years and their music
is all over the airwaves on the Smooth Jazz Radio CE.
Speaker 3 (02:52):
So I got.
Speaker 4 (02:52):
To join that group and to tour with them, to
tour with them both in the United States and outside
of the United States. I think I've been to every
state in the US at one time or another. During
some of those tours, I got to share the stage
with a lot of artists.
Speaker 3 (03:12):
During those touring.
Speaker 4 (03:14):
Days of Pieces of a Dream, I got to share
the stage with the great Bill Withers, and not only
did we open the show for Bill Withers, but we
also got to play behind him as his band, So
that was a unique opportunity, and also many others. So
when I was with Pieces of a Dream, I got
to play with the stage of Patti LaBelle and Cherrelle
(03:36):
Alexander O'Neill, which is affiliated with Prince, the Great artist Prince.
So I've had a lot of experiences within the music
industry over the since the time I have been involved
with it. So I've been very fortunate in that regard
and very blessed.
Speaker 1 (03:56):
And indeed, you have a beautiful career, and you mentioned
some very important musicians and and a lot of various genres,
I should say so. So now fast forwarding to your
new very new single called Love Is Forever. So how
(04:18):
that song was born? What is the story? And I
would ask also what was the process of making it?
Speaker 4 (04:27):
Okay, So, my history as boy Destiny started in around
two thousand and a, two thousand and nine, and at
that time there's a there's a little backstory, and that
backstory is that I was a crazy Harry Potter fan.
Speaker 3 (04:44):
I don't know if you are.
Speaker 4 (04:45):
A Harry Potter fan, but I had read all of
the novels, the Harry Potter novels, I had seen the movies,
and I was kind of crazy about Harry Potter and
all of things associated for he Potter. So in the
era around the twenty ten mark, I started working on
(05:05):
this song called the Emma Watson Song, which was dedicated
to the act the actress that.
Speaker 3 (05:11):
Is in Harry Potter.
Speaker 4 (05:13):
And that kind of started my affiliate affiliation with that
franchise because that song Emma Watson on YouTube went viral.
Speaker 3 (05:23):
Everybody went crazy over it because.
Speaker 4 (05:25):
He was You don't really see see a lot of
dedication songs to specific celebrities, especially you don't see.
Speaker 3 (05:32):
A lot of rap rap that genre.
Speaker 4 (05:37):
Dedication songs to celebrities, so that was kind of unique.
So come several years later, after making attempts to promote
that that song and that album, which was called the
Modern Times album that brought us up to the modern
era here today, and going back about a year and
(05:59):
a half, I started coming up.
Speaker 3 (06:01):
With the music for Love Is Forever.
Speaker 4 (06:05):
The driving force for it is hard to say because
there's a lot more driving force behind the lyrics than
there was in the creation of the song. I started
creating the song literally right where I'm sitting. I'm sitting
in my Billiard's room at my house. Literally this is
my Billiard's room. I'm looking at the pool table, and
I had bought a lot of equipment that Christmas and
(06:26):
I had it all on this table that I'm sitting at,
and I.
Speaker 3 (06:30):
Started working with Logic.
Speaker 4 (06:33):
I had worked with Logic before, but I had bought
some new keyboards and started working on some new material
and I came up with the music first, which is interesting.
The process of songwriting is very variable between individuals, but
for me that particular time, but not all the time,
but that particular time, it started out with the music.
(06:53):
I came up with the drum beat first, which was
done on an MPC two thousand. I'm very old school
when it comes to drummers. I like NBC three thousands
and NPC two thousands. So I wrote the beat first,
and then right across from this table, I had my
acoustic Yamaha piano and I started playing to the beat
as it was playing and coming out with ideas, and
(07:15):
actually the chords that you hear and the piano introduction
that you hear and love is forever was the first
thing that came to my fingers as I sat across
from the drum machine on the piano and started playing
and accompanying the drums. That line that is the introductory
piano line is the first thing that my fingers and
(07:37):
my brain heard. It just as an inspiration. It's the
music inspired. The beat inspired it, and I just laid
my fingers on the piano and started playing that piano line,
that little introduction line, and all of the harmonic lines
that follow for the piano that follow throughout the rest
of the song.
Speaker 3 (07:55):
It just all came.
Speaker 4 (07:56):
Out naturally, and fortunately I was recording it all at
the same time on the logic. And then once I
recorded that I went back and listened to what I
have recorded, so that included a little bit of bass
in the left hand and the piano and the chords
and the right hand on the piano. And once I
had the basic foundation established from just the inspiration of
(08:21):
the music and the beat and the sound of the
acoustic piano, I then sat back and sat on my
couch and listened to it. And as I listened to it,
the concept of love and love is forever came to me.
Now I don't I would love to have a nice
story for you, like it was because of my lost
love from my graduate school days, my girlfriend from China
(08:45):
who had to leave the country to go back to
her homeland, and then I missed her so much that
that concept of the love and the bond we had
stuck with me, and that was the first thing that
came to my mind, and then I came up.
Speaker 3 (08:59):
With these wonderful lyrics. But that was not really the case.
Speaker 4 (09:03):
It probably subconsciously could have been the case because I
was very attached to her, and when she had to
go back to China, that pretty much was very sad
for me to see the fact that she had to go.
But I know she had to go because she had
to take care of her mother and her father and
her homeland, and that was very important too. But I
always felt that we stayed connected. So and in a
(09:24):
sense we can surmise perhaps that that subconsciously, that connection
that I had with my my girlfriend from graduate school,
and the love that we shared in that relationship probably
was there and will always be there for the rest
of my life because it was a bond. It was
a kind of really unbreakable bond that we shared, and
(09:46):
somewhere in the writing of those lyrics, I'm sure that
was the impetus and that was the driving force behind
those words.
Speaker 5 (09:53):
Well, indeed, it's a beautiful story about these great news
song of yours called love Ea is Forever. So before
we start to say goodbye to each other and we
start to play your beautiful song, what is next for you?
What are your next project and what is your message
to our audience before we play your music?
Speaker 3 (10:17):
Okay, so a couple of things.
Speaker 4 (10:19):
What's coming up next in terms of that first area,
I'm going to of course be writing new music. I
have a song, kind of Latin Reggaeton styled song that
I'm dedicating to a friend of mine Erica that I've
been working on, and I want to finish working on
that in my studio downstairs and finish that off and
(10:40):
release that as a single.
Speaker 3 (10:41):
But even before I release that single, there's some material
from the Love Is Forever Saw an album.
Speaker 4 (10:47):
One song, a song called I Need Your Loving, which
has been getting a lot of traction streaming traction even
without any type of marketing. I'm not really marketing it,
but it's still getting traction and a lot of people
are listening to it. So I may release that as
the next the next single from that album sometime in
(11:07):
August or September, and then further in the future the
song Erica, which I'm working on downstairs in the studio.
I'm gonna finish those tracks up. And one other thing
I might do under a different pseudonym is because of
my smooth jazz background, I write a lot of smooth
jazz songs. I've published over fifty smooth jazz songs, So
(11:30):
I might introduce myself as a new smooth jazz artist,
but it won't be under Boy Destiny, which is a
more of a pop R and B artist, And so
that's gonna be happening as well. And then lastly, in
terms of a message to your your listening community, I
would tell them that you have to have a love
(11:53):
for what you're doing and a passion for your songwriting,
and not to be dismayed by the fact that maybe
you're not on all the major radio stations, and that
you can't get your music on all the medium stations,
and you may not be able to get on all
the hot playlists. Don't let that be your driving force.
Just do it for the love of the music, and
(12:15):
you can't go wrong.
Speaker 1 (12:16):
And you are absolutely right, and we appreciate your your
great works and your music and your your generosity. We're
so happy to have you today with this new track
code Love Is Forever.
Speaker 3 (12:31):
We have these.
Speaker 1 (12:33):
Phenomenal autists named Michael Antonio Thornton from The Boy Destiny.
Boy Destiny is one word and there is a capital
oh and a capitol and boy Destiny. Ladies and gentlemen,
my name is David. So we had the pleasure to
have to tell my heart with you on the Culture
News wonderful artists Michael Antonio Thornton from The Boy Destiny
(12:57):
and we are so happy toure is new song called
Love Is forever, right now, and I outred you stay
tune with us
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