Payin' your dues...

So Nashville...Music City! All kinds of starving artists come to Nashville looking for all kinds of different things, and there is this whole idea that you have to "pay your dues". My question is this: 

Is payin' your dues like "being cool", "postmodern", or happily single? If you state that that is what you are doing you're probably not really. Just a thought.

And for the record I have never said that I am "paying my dues".