ACT 6: The Investors Who Heard the Music

What if your family’s best investment wasn’t financial—but emotional? What if a company, could be a community?

Start at ACT 1 to begin the journey.

The first time May Dove and Mohammad Munnie stepped into the Songa Mansion, they looked like a husband and wife who could own the world if they wanted to—but would be bored doing it.

The rich people I’ve met—the ones who can buy anything—tend to be short on imagination, after all.

They looked bored now too. Waiting for a reason to leave.

Our job? Give them a reason to stay.

Because they were rich. Generationally rich. The kind of rich that survives recessions, revolutions—probably extinction too. They must own a rocket.

Or at least have seats on the last flight out.

They were exactly the kind of patrons Songa needed to turn this experiment into a movement.

Just like Wyoming once told Emerson.

There are two kinds of
successful people in this world—
those with something to prove and
those with something to serve.
Be the second kind.

Here was our chance to be that second kind.

Mo adjusted his cufflinks like he was entering a boardroom. But this wasn't a boardroom.

This was something else entirely.

Not a place. Not a pitch.

A pulse.

The same quiet pulse that first stirred in ACT 5: Blocking the Scene—when families sat in a circle, lowered their guards, and listened not as performers, but simply as people.

May was telling The Spellings and the gathered artists, a story. About Wyoming. All we ever got was stories. I was starting to believe that’s all he was.

But the story went that one night, at a Family Office Summit, the man known as ‘Wyoming’ had approached her and asked her:

“What’s the point of passing
wealth down, if we haven’t
healed the wounds we passed down too?”

May remembered asking her family office the next day: “We pay you 1% to grow our financial wealth—but who’s growing our emotional wealth?” The answer: a therapist referral. Her reply:

“We don’t need more wealth. We need more family.”

Inside the parlor—what Emerson jokingly called “the boredroom”—Lewis Blues was already at the piano. Sage tuned her guitar. The Spellings took their places.

“This isn’t a pitch,” Emerson said. “It’s a rehearsal for something real.”

“How are your kids doing?” Emerson asked.

Mo paused, caught off guard by the sincerity. “Honestly? Our daughter used to be this bright, expressive kid. Now I get grunts. Or silence. She doesn’t make eye contact anymore.”

May picked up the thread. “And our son—he’s practically living inside his gaming headset. He texts us from upstairs. We built this life so they’d feel safe, resourced. But they don’t even want to be in the same room with us.”

Mo’s voice tightened. “It’s like… we gave them everything we didn’t have—and lost the one thing we did: a sense of home.”

May nodded. “We built everything so they wouldn’t have to want for anything. But they don’t want us.”

May turned to Erin. “Is this helping your marriage?”

The question landed like a cymbal crash. Emerson’s jaw tightened. He looked at Erin for a beat, then answered, steady: “Yes.”

Erin blinked, her lips parting—then closed again. She looked at the floor, then up at May. “It’s helping us hear each other,” she said quietly. “Some days that’s progress. Some days it just reminds me how long we both went unheard.”

In the corner, Lewis let a hi-hat whisper across the silence.

“What does your ideal town look like?” Sage asked. “Who lives there? What do they believe in? What kind of art do they make? What kind of experiences would make your kids want to stay close—not just geographically, but emotionally?”

Mo looked surprised. May didn’t hesitate.

“A place where music isn't just background—it’s a bridge,” she said. “Where people show up when it matters. Where kids feel safe being themselves, and parents don’t feel like strangers in their own home.”

Sage nodded. “Then that’s the town we’ll build with you. Not someday—now. Not hypothetically—in your home. That’s what a Songa license becomes: the foundation for that future. You provide the spark. We bring the rhythm.”

Erin stepped forward. “We had wealth, but not connection. Our daughter had everything—except our full attention. Emerson and I couldn’t talk to each other. Through Songa, we started listening again—not because we had a plan, but because we had a room like this.”

Emerson added, “We spent thousands on therapists, concierge psychiatry, SSRIs. Nothing worked. Then we started recording these… experiences. It wasn’t just about making music together, but making memories. The kids started asking to hear them. Not because they were good—but because they were us.”

Mo nodded slowly. “We’ve tried everything. The best therapists. Private schools. Family retreats. Still couldn’t get our daughter to not act like a stranger.”

He rubbed the back of his neck. May reached across the space between them, resting a hand on his wrist. It was a small thing, but it steadied the air.

Lewis let his fingers fall into a lazy sway over the keys—a soft groove like a welcome mat. Sage closed her eyes, then opened them slowly.

“This is our town…” she murmured, writing as she spoke. “And you can't keep us down…”

She didn’t sing it. Not yet. Just scribbled it into her notebook, as if trying to catch a firefly before it flew. Lewis layered in a soft progression beneath her thoughts.

“We’ve built vacation homes,” Mo said quietly. “But never a village.”

Sage underlined a phrase. Lewis Blues jotted down potential notes in a fit of inspiration.

May Dove and Mo looked on in awe.

Mo spoke up: “Are you writing a new song in real time based on what we’re saying?”

“That’s what Songa is,” Sage said. “Not just music. Not just therapy. A way to co-author the future. With your family. With your block. With your zip code.”

🎧 Listen below to “Our Town.”
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Emerson stepped toward the front of the room, Lewis Blues playing the keys, served as his personal backup band as he said:

“You get facilitators who know how to turn conflict into joy. Who can take the offbeat moments and make them part of the rhythm. Who help families write harmony where there’s been discord, and turn unsaid words into a chorus everyone can sing.

You don’t just get a license You get a studio in your home. A band that meets you where you are. A catalog of memories you didn’t know you were making. A film crew to turn your family’s legacy into a legacy film.”

As a screenwriter searching for a story worth telling, that was the dialogue I’d been hoping to hear this entire time.

Emerson continued, “Not just therapy. Not just media. A new kind of music—scored in real time, by the people you love.”

He added, ““We’re not offering services. We’re offering authorship. Your family’s story—composed together, recorded in real time.”

Erin added, “Families report a 2000% increase in meaningful interactions after just three hours without phones. Divorce rates fall. Joy—measurable joy—goes up.”

May leaned forward. “But what’s the actual product?”

Sage: “Not media. Memory. You don’t watch the movie—you are the movie. You don’t stream the song—you write it.”

Mo: “And the cost?”

Forbes: “Less than 10% of most franchises. If it doesn’t strengthen your family, we refund. If it does, you roll it into stock.”

May’s voice was quiet now. “What’s the point of having more… when you already have more than enough?”

She looked at the Spellings, at the instruments still humming with potential.

“If we do this,” she said, “it won’t just be an investment. It’ll be a home our kids actually want to come back to.”

Mo: “We’ve built vacation homes, but never a village. If we join—this becomes our village.”

They looked at each other.

“If this works,” Mo said, “we get our family back.”

May finished for him. “And if it doesn’t—we lose nothing we haven’t already lost.”

Sage returned to the earlier refrain:

“This is our town... and you can't keep us down.”

And Sage began to sing ‘Our Town’, gifting Mo and May a song made just for them, about a home they didn’t even know they’d missed until that moment.

And I started to believe something I never fully allowed myself to hope in...

Maybe there was a movie in this.

Maybe what Hollywood lost in scale, St. Louis can gain in soul.

Maybe the next studio system isn’t in Burbank.

It’s in real family stories turned into films.

But Mo and May Dove left that night without signing. No license. No check. Just a thank you, a long look back at the instruments, and a promise to think it over.

I sat in the control room, heart racing anyway. Because for the first time in my life, I believed I could help build a studio system in St. Louis—not for stars, but for families. Not for content, but connection. And if May and Mo came back?

That dream might just have its first backers.

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Before Continuing to ACT 7…
Subscribe below to hear “Our Town”—
and get started building yours.

Meet a few of the characters who can help you do it. Follow their Substacks:
• Lewis Blues — musical mastermind 🎶 | The Happy Studio
• Wyoming — money mover 🏕️ | The Millionaire’s Campfire
• Forbes Nash — ex-tech wizard 🧢 | Confessions of an Ex-Billionaire