PAIN IS POWER | R-MEAN & Gary Harutyunyan

What happens when the hardest moments of your life become the very things that give you strength? On this episode of Between the Notes, Paisan Kapitan sits down with international recording artist R-MEAN and entrepreneur Gary Harutyunyan for a conversation about pain, perseverance, fatherhood, faith, purpose — and what happens when you refuse to quit. 🎤 R-MEAN returns to Between the Notes with new music and a new perspective on life. He opens up about balancing his career as an artist and pharmacist, his journey through Armenian hip-hop, working with legendary artists, and his upcoming album PAIN IS POWER. But the conversation goes much deeper than music. R-MEAN shares the incredible story of his daughter Olivia, born at just 28 weeks after an extremely difficult pregnancy. After doctors warned his family about what could happen, Olivia spent five months in the NICU fighting her way home. Today, R-MEAN and his family call her their miracle baby. He also talks about how becoming a father changed the man — and the artist — he is today. Then we meet Gary Harutyunyan, whose story sounds like it belongs in a movie. Gary opens up about a difficult childhood, the grandmother who helped shape the man he became, surviving a terrifying shooting as a teenager, and the moment during that experience when he says he saw Jesus. Years later, another struggle changed his life. After spending sleepless nights trying to comfort his colicky newborn son, Gary realized parents needed something that didn't exist. That frustration became Sleepy Baby — an invention that eventually took him all the way to Shark Tank, where he received and accepted an offer from Kendra Scott. Two Armenian men. Two completely different journeys. One powerful reminder: The things meant to destroy you can become the very things God uses to strengthen you. PAIN IS POWER. 👍 Like the video 💬 Leave a comment and tell us which guest inspired you the most. 🔔 Subscribe and turn on notifications for new episodes of Between the Notes every week! ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎙️ SUPPORT OUR GUESTS ━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎤 RMEAN Instagram: @rmean YouTube: @rmean 💨 Gary & Sleepy Baby Instagram: @sleepybabytech www.SleepyBaby.com 🎙️ PAISAN KAPITAN Instagram: @paisankapitan www.PaisanKapitan.com Available for Hosting, Improv and Voiceovers Email: [email protected] 📻 HYE JAMS RADIO Instagram: @hyejams www.HyeJams.com 📱 Download the Hye Jams App in the App Store. 🎵 Listen 24/7 to today's hottest Armenian music on the Hye Jams iHeartRadio Channel. ━━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎬 PRODUCTION NOTES ━━━━━━━━━━━━ Featured music videos used in this production were provided by, approved by, and used with permission from the writers, producers, and performers of the featured songs, who also appeared as guests in this episode. Background Music: Morning Light Music License #: 2510-71789 ━━━━━━━━━━━ 🎥 PRODUCED BY ━━━━━━━━━━━ Wayne Lewis Chummy Inc. © 2026 All Rights Reserved. ━━━━━━━━━━━ DISCLAIMER ━━━━━━━━━━━ The views, opinions, statements, allegations, and personal experiences expressed by guests appearing on Between the Notes are solely those of the individual guest and do not necessarily reflect the views, opinions, positions, or beliefs of Chummy Inc., Hye Jams Radio, Between the Notes, its hosts, producers, sponsors, affiliates, employees, contractors, or representatives. Guests are responsible for their own statements and characterizations of events. Any references to individuals, organizations, companies, productions, events, or public figures are presented as the guest's personal recollections, opinions, or experiences. Chummy Inc., Hye Jams Radio, and Between the Notes make no independent representations regarding the accuracy, completeness, or accuracy of such statements. This program is intended for informational, educational, and entertainment purposes only.