 sure of me was there before. Hi, everyone. Welcome. Thank you so much. I'm just going to wait for a second for everyone to join us. And then we're going to begin. Oh, everyone, welcome so much. Thank you so much for joining us today for today's special performance. Today's performance trust the process with Tim Hall is supported by the friends of the Robbins Library. And before I even begin, I want to thank the friends of the Robbins Library so much for being such a wonderful supporter of programming here at the Robbins Library. I am Anna Lytton and we are here today and our final performance for March 2021 for our Arlington Reads Together Program. During this month, we've tried to create space to delve into issues relating to race and identity. And I couldn't think of a better way to end this month than with this intimate performance with Tim Hall. Tim Hall is an award-winning musician and performance poet from Detroit, Michigan, now reside in Boston. His poetry draws inspiration from his lived experiences charting the nuances of blackness, masculinity, and the beauties of life. He's an assistant professor in the professional music department at Berkeley College of Music. He's won the Session Musician of the Year by the Boston Music Awards in 2020 and received a 2019 Artist Luminary Award from local youth arts nonprofit Zoomax and was honored by WBUR's Artery 25 as one of the 25 Millennials of Color impacting arts and culture in Boston. And we are so happy that the friends chose to support this wonderful performance today. I also want to thank ACMI and ACMI High School intern Peter Bergrin and Hipstery Studios for editing and support for this performance. After the performance today, we are going to have a live question and answer period, so you'll be able to ask questions on Facebook Live. You can also see this concert on ACMI's channels and on ACMI's YouTube page. So feel free to bump over to any of those places to watch today's concert and we are going to get started and thank you so much again for being here today. Thank you. Hello, this is Tim Hall and I am here to perform and share some of my work with you. Thank you so much to Anna Lytton over at Robbins Library for having me a part of the Arlington Reads Together program. Very thankful to be here with you all and excited to share some of my work. I am originally from Detroit, Michigan and moved to Boston in 2013 to work at Berkeley College of Music. I am a musician, spoken word artist and educator. I work as an assistant professor at Berkeley College of Music in their professional music department and I also am here in Hipstery Studios. I co-own Hipstery, which is a digital media production company dedicated to centering marginalized identities in media through music and film and I have a few tunes for you. So here we go. This first piece is titled Morning Dew. It is actually from a project between myself and my brother Cliff Notes and we go by Holland Notes and it's just a great starter, you know, so I want you to, you know, wherever you are, whether you're at home, the office in your car chilling outside on the lawn while you're watching this is just take a minute to take a deep breath in. Breathe out and feel the vibe. This is Morning Dew. Feel free to snap or clap along with me. That is Morning Dew. So starting with that piece because it's such a warm and homey feel and vibe and that's what we're all about today. So I want you all to relax and vibe with me. Hopefully, you know, if you want to snap or dance along while I'm performing, I invite you to do all of that. That's what I'm all about. Like I said, I'm originally from Detroit, Michigan and growing up in Motor City in Motown. I grew up with a lot of soul music, a lot of funk, R&B, gospel and in hip hop and a lot of those genres influence my work. They inform how I approach music and also what I write about and this next piece is a paying homage and celebration to my roots. My father is a big reason as to why I have chosen the path of musician and music and artist and my family overall just supported me hugely. They are the reason why I got into different arts programs and went to various camps and why I felt very empowered to accept the role of artist and entertainer in this world. So this piece is titled Dad Did. Remember waiting anxiously for my fourth grade music teacher to call on me and ask the question I have been preparing for all week. What instrument would you like to play? And probably I said the saxophone. Well, that was after the drums had already been taken, but still I knew the sax was a good choice because my dad loved jazz and I wanted to make him proud. See, music set the mood and brand new heavies coupled with the smell of eggs and baking mint. I was doing yard work that Kirk Whelam and Oatmeal's sweet scent meant get an extra hour of sleep. Dad was studying his body. Smokey smell of hair. Earth went in fires September and cocky laughter meant my dad was full of himself and I was eating barbecue them. Ooh, this tastes good. It was my cue to run upstairs for a fresh sampling of his creamy mac and cheese right out of the oven. Good music. A smile on my face and some food in my stomach was his saving. It was his way of showing me why I should be proud of my name. And life is about love and faith. Then my word is the most important commitment I can ever make. If I can get a woman to smile with some creamy mac and cheese, then maybe I can share the same beautiful realize the life we shared like the long drives down I 75 to Savannah mom and little brother and sis passed out in the back seat and dad ranting about his glory days. He had this huge collection of albums and babbled on the trombone. I learned about my past. That music was the time machine shaping the way we view the world our tour guide and the lifelong escapade that music was the music of my birth with pockets of soul and rhythm plastered together and break side sound. Listen to miles cold train and Quincy blues infusion hip hop or blackness my dad used music to open my eyes to a life I was meant to live gave me the courage to be the me I was most afraid of be the voice I never thought I had the salvation I sometimes forgot to pray be a beautifully scored masterpiece etched into the memory banks of everyone's nervous fourth grade with a heart to make his father proud with a strong as his word and the ability to cook a smile on that special space that did very fortunate very fortunate to have that upbringing to have that support system and to have that encouragement growing up also being in this really strong music and strong arts community meant that there is an infrastructure and ecosystem for me as a young person to explore my music to explore my voice as an artist and musician by 17 I was gigging in bars and playing festivals in the local scene in 1819 2021 getting to do more and more shows and play with different artists and having a generation before me that invested in me as a young person gave me the courage and the ability to say like yo this is something that I can make into a living and thankfully it's allowed me to do just that. So just very appreciative of of programs and communities that have a place for young people to explore their voice and their artistry and support support that because I wouldn't have the life that I that I do have right now without without that kind of support so very thankful for for where I grew up in how it's brought me here to Boston and being in Boston. Things have just have grown and have blossomed and very appreciative for that this next piece that I wanted to play for you is a poem from my book of poems called trust the process. This is a significant poem as well as the title trust the process. It's actually going to be the title of my upcoming EP which I'm very excited to release the three song EP that got allowed me to compose some of the music that you're hearing into live instrumentation so very excited to to release that and share that with everyone but this first piece from this book is titled hey yes. You you with the pole. You're much stronger than the wind. You able soul. Yes you have defeated the odds. They stare at your back with arms wide and long. Hurt by your resilience you yes you with the baggage. All you need is a carry on there is no more room for the sorry's of your mistakes. They are plenty. They fueled your fury and sharpened your fight. You don't need them yes you with the shattered love. There is no logic to crappy people. Only hope filled goodbyes. Hope for their consciousness. Hope they will forgive themselves for the damages they've done hope no one again becomes their savior. It was a tough role for you once you wouldn't wish that on anyone your love is not broken. It has infinite sunrises and countless moons left in its story you are the writer of the poem your paperback cover has been folded kicked and stepped on not empty your pencils do not dull your pages are ready to be written in such a such a like wonderful medium to be able to encourage inspire and express what I admire about the work in the perspective that I offer is I try to encourage and uplift through imagery that can be easily connected to for the longest poetry seemed like a medium and an art form that I couldn't connect with because at times I felt like certain writers use very cerebral big words and there's nothing wrong with that at all. However, at the point in which I connected with poetry it was something that was inaccessible. And as I started to get to college and explore my own feelings and my transition to a new place leaving home and living away from home for the first time I found poetry as a place for me to throw my emotions my thoughts my feelings into and share my lived experience from my words from my perspective so it's been a beautiful journey with poetry and I'm very thankful for the places has taken me and also where it's going to be taking me so my writing is something that I am very appreciative of because it's it's allowed me to remember my own strength and to speak life into myself. This next piece is also something that is meant to inspire and to give energy and light to so this piece is titled Rise. Feel free to dance along to move your body and to repeat the chant which is just rise rise to the occasion rise through the challenging things that you're going through rise step into your power whatever is happening for you tomorrow next week this weekend whenever that you're able to rise to the occasion that you're able to rise through the challenges that you are faced with that you're able to rise and accept all of the blessings in your life and the good things that are happening to you and for you. Yeah, right so this next piece is is titled picture perfect and it is a piece that I wrote above my parents it's a piece that for me is an example and a picture of their love and what they've been able to share with me and my siblings the things that they've endured and gone through very proud of them very thankful for them and and being the parents that they have been in my life taught me so much so this piece is titled picture perfect fall for you don't know so let me love you at your worst deserve you at your best time tell stories of our past and plots thicken as we all fall down but healing healing is for those courageous enough to be formed want to fall for you I don't know so let me push you when you're weak encourage you when you're tired praise find correlations between your will and your stubborn four of our relationship is rooted in acceptance laws are common but sometimes love is going to fall for you I don't remember what scared feels like allow it to remind my mind that I'm still alive and that you're really rare I don't think my imagination is playing tricks on me so I must be doing something right to let the woman in my dreams far for you I don't know because the past present and future are the spectrum of our life we don't have to be who we were yesterday but tomorrow is depending on who we are today so actually I love you I know the past that I hear you don't see the future that we will reach the restraints that we will breach because of our love is essentially the replication of a time machine playing our best response over a way to internally engrave our love into the DNA of our children so we'll see this time in the next that I will love you until I molecules evaporate into the sky perfectly painted into infinity preserved ever so delicate in the painting hanged by grandchildren it's a it's a poem that I wrote so long ago but it it makes me think of my parents are my mind reminds me of them all the time so hope that you enjoyed that piece picture perfect word so I have one more piece for you this final piece is titled trust the process and the title of a book of poems of course but it also is song that I've been able to compose that will be on this upcoming project trust the process EP in April and it is a piece that I wrote for myself when I was going through a very very challenging time I was taking this poetry writing class and was having a really tough personal week in my professor saw that I was struggling that day and they had a rock and that rock had the words trust the process painted on it and they gave it to me and was just like yo it seems like you could use this and that rock just got me through that semester got me through the remainder of that year it got me through the process of writing this book and it's a poem that I hope is something that you can connect with that you can trust your own process it is a way of me acknowledging my own strength reminding myself that I'm human and that I will be able to get through anything just have to trust my own process and it's the same note that I want to leave for you I want to encourage you to trust your process trust yourself believe in what you feel is the right decision for you in any moment in any time of your life and move forward with that so trust the process it looks impossible the couch feels comfortable and sun rays splashing from the bay windows look uneven when the conversation with your partner seems daunting and your feelings eat away at your tongue's ability to produce words trust the process when depression is the dust that refuses to be swept from the floor all you want is freedom from having to clean up the destructive thoughts that fall when song doesn't sound as beautiful melody no longer scales your arms with goosebumps trust the process here resembles the worn notebook in your book bag rarely open every no app on your phone or the twice folded posted notes dusting your desk that stare and stare hover and weight tire and toggle and get misplaced and are found and still not touched the outside taunts you to smile in its direction eyes and feel the heat wash your feelings matter words hold value is impossible for your partner to know the lining of your mind or heart or hurt from the desk settles you will still be a person all pumping blood processing my pressure quaking hand against the valley of your chest listen to the silence of your beautiful body and welcome the music in your story trust the process of your healing trust the process of your hope trust the process of your deliverance trust the process of your mindfulness trust the process of your pain this is Tim Hall thank you so much for having me thank you to Anna Litton and Robin's library I'm in the Arlington together program thank you so much for having me have a good evening peace Tim thank you so much I feel like so touched by your performance I feel so touched by being able to participate with all the people who clearly love you as we saw in the comments today so I just really want to thank you first of all for taking the time for being here with us for creating such an amazing amazing performance and I do want people to know they're welcome to enter questions in the queue in the in the comments in the Facebook live stream and we'll get to them but I have a couple of questions for you before we begin before we take questions from the community yeah I just I don't think I'm not sure if I told you the story I somebody Jill Harvey who is the director of diversity equity and inclusion for the town of Arlington she and I were talking we're I was telling her that I was looking for a musical performance to finish our month for Arlington reads together and she sent me a video of you performing dad did and as soon as I saw that video I was like oh we need to have this guy that this month we've been really talking about race and identity and in libraries we sometimes talk about literature as being both a window and a mirror into an experience and I think that your work is such a fantastic window in a mirror it's a window into your experience and reflect so much back for so many different people what their experiences have been like and this kind of leads me into a question that you kind of you mentioned a little bit earlier and I know that hip street studios is the organization that you work with and I know that it's or it's your organization really and you work on centering marginalized identities in media and as we know that I as in a library in the world I want people to see so many different stories and it sounds like that's one of the things that you're doing I was hoping you could talk a little bit about about that project. Yeah in terms of the organization hip story it's it's founded by my my brother Cliff Notes I'm one of the co-owners of hip story and essentially the organization is a recording studio media production company so we produce music films and events we have a recording studio in Cambridge and we are are known for curating various events we've worked with the MFA hub week city of Boston Arts and Culture and a number of other organizations we've produced short films and then we adjust we've also worked on music and helped to record and produce another among a number of our own in-house creatives and collaborators as well as folks in the community and essentially we just care about centering a big and a large identity for us is like our blackness we are a black owned company and very unapologetic about that and really talking or using media and using using music and film as a way to shine light and share stories of of those who have been marginalized or historically erased within the public in what that looks like is Cliff Notes he put out a short film called vitiligo addressing mental health in the black community. Additionally the art of being haunted is another short film that was created by Hakeem Hill or other filmmaker on our team both addressing mental health within the black community and then the artists that we we tend to focus on and shine light on within our different programming are often artists who have a story to tell who have a lived experience that they have found a way to articulate through their artistry through their music or poetry or our dance and we create a platform for them to share that and amplify amplify those moments amplify those artists and really it's about finding a way to collaborate to find ways of pain in supporting artists compensating artists fairly while also building a platform for us that essentially our hope is that it becomes bigger than ourselves that you know that our platform becomes a place that is known for showcasing artists that's known for talking about real experiences who articulate and ask and critique questions and thoughts and perspectives our goal is really to to shine light on on those opportunities by using our platform using the technology and space and network to to be able to build that out so it's a it's an amazing organization to be a part of and I encourage you know all to to check it out you can find us at hipsteryhipstory.org we're working on a website update and we will be opening our doors to more more of the public for recording services live streaming in studio performances podcast stuff like that very soon. Yeah, it's fantastic. It's just it's finding ways to amplify for us right now I want to see places that help amplify black voices and share stories that people aren't delving into and it's just it's been I really love the mission of the organization. It's just a great way to help us in the community learn more about artists in our in our community as well that kind of brings me to a little bit to the next question you've come here from Detroit and Detroit is obviously a place with a long history of black artistry and black music. Boston is not so much a history a city with that same kind of history. Is there a difference for you in creating creating art creating music creating poetry in Detroit and in Boston. Yes, there definitely is a difference in and now it goes far to say that there there is a deep and rich history for of of black artists in black art in Boston. It just looks differently. It's amplified differently and I'm one just extremely thankful and blessed have been welcomed into the Boston scene by the by the local artists here in local community members for me Detroit having having a light house like Motown Records in in a black city is and has been incredible. It's an amazing lineage in history that I get to say I'm a part of that I've been inspired by that I've been encouraged by there definitely is something unique to growing up in a predominantly black city compared to you know folks who have grown up here in Boston to to grow up in a school system where I'm I am of the majority was something that I think I didn't really know I had a privilege like that until I left and went to college and all of a sudden I'm in I'm at a predominantly white institution a state college 22,000 you know students are went to my undergrad 30,000 students went to my cop to my grads graduate program and those are you know in Ohio and Iowa so those are very much white towns white cities in terms of where those schools were situated so like growing up in a predominantly black neighborhood where I was of the majority I think that I got to see myself in my community I got to see myself in the people that I was around I got to experience and grow a level of understanding for my own black identity through music food community and interaction just how folks engage with one another and for me there for me there is nothing like going home walking into a venue in the hearing a group of Detroit musicians play like right that I am I am all for that 100% it is it is what rejuvenates me whenever I do go home I have to go and connect and just listen to a group of Detroit artists do their thing it is I think like no other experience I feel like Detroit is very underrated in that in that regard in terms of you know I think there is such a big focus on the lineage in history of of Motown as well as rock music and then also techno music and house music which a lot of people don't know house has a extremely strong foundation from Detroit which like there's there's such a big focus on some of those big things that I think the level of musicianship and artistry that does live in Detroit sometimes gets overlooked and I think I feel like it's happening less and less though I keep hearing about like these amazing art incubators and absolutely yeah I'm really excited to go to Detroit when I get to travel again it is like really high on my list right and kind of speaking to what you just named like when once I started to get into the grant and fellowship in that scene as a professional artist is when I also started to notice that there is these different opportunities right that have started up in in Detroit and from individuals that I know that have been able to benefit from being a part of those programs to just me being in a position to also educate and share knowledge with my friends back at home about yo there's money out here for us there's there's free money out there for us as artists to create there's there's there are resources out there for us to to to take advantage of and I think that being a being a musician in genres that sometimes might not necessarily be recognized in in these spaces because the reality is that grants and fellowships often come from institutions institutions are often supporting and continuing to support I think classical and more traditional art forms and sometimes R&B, hip hop, rap, funk, soul, neo soul those genres sometimes or have not historically I think been recognized as as like just as important as a quartet classical ballet so forth so forth so as we're talking about systemic racism and and any any quality I think that we've started to also see a lot of institutions grant funders and so forth realize how much of a disservice they're doing to themselves in excluding and not thinking about how they are making space for artists one that look like me and then to that artists who are who have disciplines that don't necessarily fit sometimes within the traditional art spectrum even just like looking up art grant or art grant opportunity you know some of the first things that pop up are for like fine arts for visual artists for the classical traditional arts like just in doing a basic Google search you can see that there there definitely is a history of like a focal point in identifying what is seen as more valuable when it comes down to art and practice versus others so I definitely am thankful that I've been able to one be in a city like Boston where some of those barriers are being broken down and we're starting to see more and more institutions make sure that they're creating a more welcoming and inclusive application process but then also to encourage my friends in other places to look into these things because I've thankfully been able to to benefit from them to tap in you know it's funny that you mentioned that we were I was just talking with some staff people about the author Heather McGee she's a sociologist and or maybe she's an economist but she talks about what racism costs everyone and in your example not funding or not supplying the same kind of funding for hip-hop and R&B as you might get for grants for other kinds of music we as a society lose when we don't support all of our artists and I think that's just a great art um but another question of a question from an audience member um trust the process is such a powerful mantra can you talk about the different context oh we've got the question right up here can you talk about the different context where you've called on that mantra have you had moments of doubt all the time you cannot tell because you are so one of the things I love about talking with you every time we've chatted listening to you your music in your performance is so inspiring and uplifting and I know that's one of the things that you hope to bring so it is always interesting to hear what is it like to have a moment of doubt and how do you trust the process um I think that that just in the process I wrote that poem and I wrote that book for me first like first it was it was uh it was a way for me to challenge myself to hit a goal of saying like yo I want to be an author I want to write a book what do I need to do um started to take a class and through that class started to understand um and develop a process for myself being a musician um how I just literally saw uh one of my my high school band director here comment like he's he's one of the individuals that helps me develop a process for playing for practicing like what is the practice the process of practicing and like how beneficial that is to my my creative um uh my creative discipline and over over time over the years I've lost sight of that at times where I hadn't practiced or or I was so busy gigging and performing that I hadn't actually sat down to practice and there was a big difference between like regularly performing and then also having a a practice routine um but trusting the process was also about life this is a a life transition that I was going through and um trusting the process was about trusting myself trusting my institution um trusting that whatever I was going through I was going to find uh the other side to it I was going to find that light at the end of the tunnel um part of that was about trusting my faith um in that I'm I'm making the best decisions for myself it's about trusting um that whatever pain or hurt that I might experience in life would also have what would not be uh the only I won't stay in that essentially like I there's there's a process by which of you know getting to joy and getting to healing and getting to um yeah not feeling as down as we do throughout our life like um I very much have many many doubts at times and many many moments of uh questioning and and as an artist as a professional artist um especially during COVID like COVID turned everyone's world upside down we've experienced a lot of loss and pain and trauma um and we've also had an opportunity to get some rest perspective um to to have a seat in the in the in the in the many uh moments of of our busy lives and I I definitely have experienced that and am still experiencing that um at the top of 2020 I left my full-time job to transition to a part-time job so I can focus on my artistry so I can focus more on performing and turning my art into something that also sustains me financially um more than it was before and trust the process I wrote that book in 2016 and it's still very much prevalent if not like a very important part of what I'm doing now in 2020 um so that I say that as like saying it for myself knowing that there's other folks who can relate. Yeah yeah um I have one last question for you the last question we asked Dr. Beverly Daniel Tatum last week as well what gives you hope? First my faith but there is it's part of my foundation it's a part of of what I was born into my family and um the environment that they created for me is first and foremost like faith that we're going to get through this um faith and belief that's for me um that's what I call like useful energy it's like that's that's the energy that is most useful if I'm gonna like think and process what's going on right now like having that hope and faith that things are gonna be okay um as well as I still have hope and people in humanity um as much as there are uh folks out there who are malicious who um are unconscious who have been also taught and constructed to believe um in things that are um horrible and um destructive there are also folks out there who believe in light and love who believe in abundance who believe in justice and righting wrongs who believe in equity and accountability um so I have I have hope and faith in humans in our humanity to say like yo there's some things that are very messed up about our world and about how we are treating one another about our systems our policies our governmental structures um our local governmental structures as well and I'm a part of of those of that group of folks so I know I'm not alone in that hope and in that belief and in that faith that um you know we we want better for our life and for our world so that's the other thing as well yeah and really good food so oh um Tim I cannot thank you enough for joining us today for providing us with what I would have to say is the perfect vibe for the Sunday afternoon that the intimate concert today was just what we all need on this rainy day um I want to thank everyone for joining us today for this last event of our 2021 Arlington Reads Together program I know if you want if you like me cannot wait to see Tim Hall in person somewhere in the Boston area Tim how do we find you yes go to linktree um backslash tv underscore also L I K L I N K T R dot backslash tv is in television underscore H A L L um that is where you will be able to find my newsletter so we'll love for you to join my newsletter to keep track of what I'm doing I will be releasing um my E piece very very soon and we'll love to give folks on my newsletter a sneak peek before I release it to the masses as well as early releases and videos to engage with me by marriage and support um so yeah check out check out that link and you can also find links to other performances there as well great great um this performance today's performance was the last event for our 2021 Arlington Reads Together series for those of you in town who still have not had a chance to read our community read book which is why are all the black kids sitting together in the cafeteria we still have copies in the library we'd love to get you one uh you can go over to robbinslibrary.org and see the full list of events a bunch of those have been recorded so you will be able to see some of those events and there's a reading guide there for the Arlington Reads Together title choice as well so you click over there you're able to move over to our Arlington Reads Together page and find all that information Tim again I can't thank you enough for joining us today I want to thank the friends of robbinslibrary for supporting this program I want to shout out ACMI for providing us with fantastic technical support and thank you so much