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Bruno Mars · S1 E6
Roosevelt High
Performing at school talent shows, writing his first songs, forming a band. The island is too small for what he wants to do
The auditorium at Roosevelt High School falls quiet as a teenager walks to the center of the stage. He is not doing Elvis anymore, and for the first time, Peter Hernandez is performing something he wrote himself.
Bad Meets Evil feat. Bruno Mars, Lighters (Official Music Video, 2011). Hold your lighter up. A song about rising above everything and refusing to let the world tell you no. For a teenager about to leave Hawaii with nothing but a voice and a plan, this is the anthem.
Roosevelt High School, Honolulu
The public school where Bruno Mars went from child impersonator to original artist. The talent show stage where he first performed his own material and realized that covers were no longer enough.
The Talent Show King
Roosevelt High School in Honolulu is not a performing arts academy. It is a regular public school in a working-class neighborhood. But when Peter Hernandez signs up for the talent show, he is not just the best singer in school: he is the best performer anyone in the building has ever seen.
TAP TO REVEAL: Who else did Bruno impersonate besides Elvis?
“I knew I had to get out of Hawaii. I love Hawaii, but there's no music industry there. If I was going to do this for real, I had to go to where the music was.”
— Bruno Mars, interview with GQ, March 2013
Lighters, Bad Meets Evil feat. Bruno Mars (2011)
Bruno wrote and sang the hook for Eminem and Royce da 5'9"'s comeback single, creating the definitive underdog anthem of 2011. His chorus soars over the verses like a stadium singalong waiting to happen. Listen for how Bruno's voice lifts the entire track out of hip-hop and into something universal. He was not just a featured artist here. He was the emotional core of the song.
What was Bruno's reputation at Roosevelt High School?
Somewhere in Brooklyn, Bruno Mars
From Doo-Wops & Hooligans (2010). A deep album cut most casual fans have never heard. The song captures the ache of encountering something extraordinary and knowing you have to chase it, no matter the cost. For a teenager in Honolulu who knows his future is 2,500 miles east across the Pacific, this is the sound of staring at the horizon and deciding to jump.
Graduation day arrives and Peter Hernandez has already made up his mind. Next: a seventeen-year-old boards a flight to Los Angeles, picks a new name, and discovers that the mainland does not care how many talent shows you won in Honolulu.
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