We were lucky to catch up with Tavon Gibbs recently and have shared our conversation below.

Alright, Tavon thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. We’d love to hear about when you first realized that you wanted to pursue a creative path professionally.

My Mother’s death is a big part of the reason why I wanted to pursue a creative path professionally. I’ve always been talented at many things in my life, but I never really used my creative vision to it’s full potential, it would always be idea after idea and then I would continue to shelf them. For me the reason for not pursuing it earlier was because the timing was off for me, it didn’t feel right internally to do so. I would always find ways to express myself in different ways subliminally right? So people knew that I was ‘ME” and what I mean by that is doing things in a unorthodox way. I would intentionally leave people guessing and that’s hard to do, coming from where I come from. Growing up in the projects, I learned early on how to play the game of life and think for myself. I was a troubled kid, not because of my environment but because I didn’t understand the circumstances and I would question everything around me, the cards that were dealt if we want to put it that way. As a kid I knew I wanted to create something, that would help and inspire, now that’s such a broad topic but it’s what I envisioned. Fast forward in life, 3x college graduate, professional baseball experience, and a corporate career in the tech industry, I still remained a mystery to the world even with things in plain sight, I’d like to say. I never wanted people to know my ideas, so again I did things subliminally and the things that were at the forefront was not even half of what I inspired to achieve in life on the creative side. December 3, 2021 my mother passed away and it shattered my heart and reality to pieces and it impacted my mental health even more. I had no one to have conversations with about grief, and mental health. Always being labeled as the strong person and someone who makes something out of nothing, everyone thought that I was fine and that even though this was a traumatic loss, that I could be okay with masking things again. I wasn’t and I went into a shell and easily became angry with life. One day I recorded a video in April of 2024 of me just expressing my feelings with myself because I needed to talk to someone and had no one, without any expectations and guidance I just posted it on TikTok for the hell of it. Within 12 hours that video reached over 20k people from TikTok and Facebook with so many people being able to resonate with my words, I woke up confused and anxious and I started to post a few more talking points about my organic thoughts about my experiences and it was the same results.. Fast forward to June 23, 2024 I woke up one day and said “I’m starting a podcast” I created social media pages, designed a logo, booked the nearest studio session and wrote out a script for my inaugural episode which is titled “Journey to Healing After Losing my mother” Where I just let it all out.

My mother’s death, and the missing of her presence is the reason why I actually pursued a creative path. Something so painful, heartbroken made me finally want to show my TRUE creative and artistic side to the world and to be able to help others at the same time was the icing on the cake for me

-Tavon

Awesome – so before we get into the rest of our questions, can you briefly introduce yourself to our readers.

My name is Tavon Gibbs, and I’m from Detroit Michigan. I’m an alumni of Kentucky State University and I’m a digital creator and Podcast Host for Talk With Tay Podcast, I’ve always been a fan of content, cameras and storytelling. I love watching tv and impersonating things I see in the digital media space. What got me into podcasting, content creation was me searching for an outlet while grieving the lost of my mother, with no where to turn to. I am a mental health advocate and I always thought it was unordinary for people to suffer silently and continue with life to sum it up. I inspire people to open up about grief, and mental health because of my life experiences, I personally know people from all walks of life, I can talk the language with just about anybody and that’s what sets me apart from others and being a black man expressing vulnerability and sensitive topics so openly gives a different perspective to the world because it’s not labeled as a “normal” thing for us, it’s considered weak but it’s something that we’re all dealing with. I give those the space to process, and feel normal about their feelings, not just men, but everyone. Being open about these things in an articulate way is something you don’t see often and if you do, it’s down played. Being able to relate to people from every walk of life like me is impressive. I’m most proud of being myself no matter what, creativity is about what you see, feel, and hear, I’m proud that I can be able to take my worth ethic from all facets of life and implement different things into creativity, starting the platform was the hard part, now it’s normal to me, I’m proud that people can see my work and gain inspiration from it. I want everyone to know that I’m a human.

Can you share a story from your journey that illustrates your resilience?

My Mother’s death has many layers to it and being from the projects, she always supported what I wanted to do as a kid, because I wanted to accomplish something different from what everyone around me was use to. Me going to college, made my mother proud because I was the first in the family to do so. Me and her always talked about graduating college and she would always tell me “I pray I’ll be here to see it” She passed away December 3, 2021 and I graduated with my Bachelor’s December 11, 2021 a week after her passing. It’s easily the worst feeling I could ever feel in life to be honest because while she was sick and practically on her death bed, she promised me that she would be there to see me. 2 weeks after my mothers funeral, I moved to Kentucky, to start graduate school and finish playing baseball. One of the hardest things I had to do, was bury my mother and start back School, baseball, and research and act like nothing ever happened. I constantly put on a facade for 6 months after my mother’s passing in a completely new environment and I was able to be apart of a championship team that year, finish the semester with a 3.5 GPA and 2 semesters later, obtain my degree, complete my Thesis and play professional baseball.

Is there mission driving your creative journey?

The mission for me is simply healing and making it cool for people to actually heal and express what’s bothering them. Most importantly myself, I focus on my healing first though, because I’m not perfect and I’m very transparent about my journey and that’s what makes it cool to me

Contact Info:

• Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/talkwithtaypod/?igsh=YzAwZjE1ZTI0Zg%3D%3D&utm_source=qr
• Youtube: https://youtube.com/@talkwithtaypodcast?si=i6hknGSadG6XWRkk
• Other: https://www.tiktok.com/@talkwithtaypod

Image Credits

Photographer – Kenny Scott @___rawshot on Instagram
Aaron Figueroa – @bayareapodcaststudio