We recently connected with Taha Ghazipour and have shared our conversation below.
Alright, Taha thanks for taking the time to share your stories and insights with us today. One of the toughest things about progressing in your creative career is that there are almost always unexpected problems that come up – problems that you often can’t read about in advance, can’t prepare for, etc. Have you had such and experience and if so, can you tell us the story of one of those unexpected problems you’ve encountered?
I was born in Iran and grew up there for 19 years. Ever since I was 6 years old, I knew deep down that I wanted to have a career as an artist in the United States. However, for me growing up in a specific era of that part of the world, it was the political climate that ruled everything and I was being told that it is not easy. my immigration to the United States was also in the middle of a revolution; at a time when people found their voice, the dreams, and their rights shut off, I was thinking of where it started and where it is supposed to land. Now, it’s been 2 years since I’ve made a way to be here and pursue my career goals, but my first 2 years were full of unexpected moments. From being an asylum seeker as a Christian; a religious minority in Iran , to witnessing the widespread killing that happened just a few months ago and consecutive wars happening every few months while losing access and any sort of connection to my beloved ones.
Every single day that I wake up I find a thousand reasons to let go of my journey but only one reason to hold onto; and that is wanting and owning what I’m built to have. I have said this multiple times and I don’t mind repeating that; if I feel something and if it means something to me I own it .
Once you find yourself in the middle of a big fire, you often find people with different mindsets making a sword out of your struggle to fight their own battle, to prove that they were right; but you are not fighting for right or wrong an that is the only beautiful part! You are fighting to prove and show that it is possible; that no matter who and where you are you can still find your way in the midst of the chaos and get what you want.
As always, we appreciate you sharing your insights and we’ve got a few more questions for you, but before we get to all of that can you take a minute to introduce yourself and give our readers some of your back background and context?
I write songs based on people’s narratives and journeys including mine. I see the power of music and art in the way that you hear different narratives, go back to your journey, to your story to what happened to you and where you came form, where you’ve been and you turn every part into a song. Sometimes that’s the only way you can move forward; the only way to deal with life. I call my journey and my story “Rootless But Rising” but what does that actually mean ?
How can you be rootless and not nailed to the ground but yet have the power to rise and grow?
What would you do when life pulls the plug as you’re mid sentence?
I was born and raised in Iran. Growing up in that geography everything seemed different. You can’t say the skies the limits once you don’t have access to the most basic rights that each human should have.
Growing up there and since I was 6 years old I already knew that one day I would come to the United States, build my career and create more peace as an artist in world full of chaos. But l was always be told that it’s not easy since United States and Iran don’t have any diplomatic relationship .
When I was 18 years old, I had gotten admitted into a music school in LA. I had to go to the U.S. embassy in another country to be interviewed for Visa since there wasn’t any US embassy in Iran. I went to U.S. embassy in Muscat Oman to get the visa and in less than 2 minutes the consulate officer told me: “Sorry you’re not qualified” and I got rejected. A week after I came back to my country, a revolution began in my country after the death of a 22-year old girl by the morality police because of not
putting her scarf. Every day we witnessed a lot of people being killed, being suppressed by the hands of the government forces.
Meanwhile I was trying to get another chance to survive and revive my dreams after that rejection and I had only a couple of months to leave the country or else I would ve been sent to the drafting and the military service that suppressed people on the streets. The government had filtered the internet and we had very limited access to the free internet, all of the social media platforms and University websites were filtered. But yet I applied to universities and got rejected one after another. Meanwhile the only fortunate thing that happened was that I got approved by the Recording Academy to become an official member.
Through the mentorship programs I connected to a Grammy voting member,
we wrote a song together an I applied to Berklee, got accepted, got scholarships and then a couple of months later I got my visa and I came to the United States.
I found the answers where I had even lost the counts of questions because the meaning is what kept me going.
What do you find most rewarding about being a creative?
I find the most rewarding aspect of being an artist in living the moments and doing the verbs rather than the nouns. We can call ourselves whatever we want and that’s sometimes the easy part but it is also easy to find the same joy, same passion and excitement that you found in your craft for the very first time again and again.
Learning and unlearning are both critical parts of growth – can you share a story of a time when you had to unlearn a lesson?
Unlearning to care too much about. the outcome in everything . That’s what I have to say. Overtime, I came to the point that I saw I cared too much about every interaction, every confrontation, every relationship. But I also realized it’s good to be nice to yourself . You’re not supposed to handle every consequence, every outcome; some things are non negotiable
Contact Info:
- Website: https://linktr.ee/tahaghazipour?utm_source=linktree_profile_share<sid=0160ae6b-586f-4a96-8610-e0e3b251f2e7
- Instagram: https://www.instagram.com/gha.taha/
- Linkedin: https://www.linkedin.com/in/tahaghazipour
- Other: Spotify: https://open.spotify.com/artist/5VsMlptJ4vkabV8tXfAIvB?si=lZOOMGZdS4GpG3HWp84n1Q
Image Credits
images: Claire Chiarelli