Photo taken by Peter Jamus
HASSAN SHAHID
CEDAR COMMISSIONS SPOTLIGHT INTERVIEWS
Over the next few weeks, we’re featuring the six artists of the 2020-2021 Cedar Commissions (taking place Friday, March 5th, Saturday, March 6th, and Sunday, March 7th) in a series of interviews on our site. The Cedar Commissions is a flagship program for emerging Minnesotan composers and musicians made possible with a grant from the Jerome Foundation.
Through the COVID-19 pandemic, these artists have been composing, exploring new ideas, and assembling teams of musicians to bring their work to fruition. Over the three nights of The Cedar Commissions, audience members will hear music inspired by the process of finding beauty in mental illness, stories of the Portuguese diaspora, evolution of the Hmong language, Black Muslim American fatherhood, addressing personal traumas, healing through Bomba, and so much more.
For our fifth spotlight interview we will be highlighting Hassan Shahid. Hassan is an acoustic guitarist, singer, and songwriter. For the 2021 Cedar Commissions Hassan made a project titled “Songs For My Ummah: A Black Muslim Father’s Exploration in Vulnerability.” This project explores his relationship to his emotional world through reflecting on his experiences being Black, Muslim, and a man. Hassan spoke with Shasa Sartin, The Cedar’s Marketing and Programs Assistant, about expressing vulnerabilities through music; his relationship to writing music; and confronting racism in the Twin Cities.
Photo taken by Peter Jamus
“I feel like, especially in society, you can go through things and you can’t really have nobody to talk to, but I can always talk to that pen.”
Shasa Sartin: Your work for the Cedar commissions is titled "Songs For My Ummah: A Black Muslim Father's Exploration in Vulnerability." So is being vulnerable with your emotions something that has been natural for you or is it a challenge, like something you have to work on?
Hassan Shahid: I think being vulnerable is definitely something that has always been natural to me. I think I just came from a household that always focused on the inward, spiritually wise. I grew up in a Sufi Muslim household, and if you know anything about Sufism it's all about spirituality itself and a lot of introspective on behavior, so I've always been always pretty in tune and in touch with my emotions. Not always expressing them. But yeah, vulnerability is something that I've always been able to practice, always. It just wasn't until I picked up my instrument, that I found the time just to be able to channel those emotions into an actual, tangible thing that I could grow with and through that.
Hassan with his family members. Photo Courtesy to Hassan Shahid.
Shasa: As a follow-up question, you said that you've been used to being highly introspective, turning inward and reflecting on your emotions, but not always expressing them. It sounds like making music has been an avenue for you to engage in the step after being introspective and being really inward. Could you speak to that?
Hassan: Yeah, definitely, I think my music has definitely been a tool for me to healthily — like a healthy outlet to be able to deal with a lot of my emotions: let it be irritations or frustrations or just obstacles and not really knowing who to turn to. I feel like, especially in society, you can go through things and you can't really have nobody to talk to, but I can always talk to that pen. And I think it was a tool for me to just be able to process some of my emotions and feelings in a matter that wasn't unhealthy. And this has been a blessing to be able to now be able to talk about this because I know a lot of people who go through mental issues and obstacles, chemical dependencies, and that's their outlet of being able to deal with it. And mine, through the grace of God, it's always just been the pen, and music, and the guitar. I feel like it's definitely been a healthy outlet for me.
Shasa: One last follow-up on that — you keep referencing “the pen,” and so you're talking about the act of writing music. Do you often write songs and poems before you start to make music to go with it?
Hassan: Honestly, it's a very organic process. Sometimes it's the guitar riff and then the music comes or I write it out and I just find chords to go along with it. And then the music comes after playing, through repetition. It really — it's an organic process it's different every time. There was a period in my life, I used to take the bus every day to work, and then also take the bus to a school program that I was attending, and I had a lot of time where I was on a bus, so I would write and journal every day, and a lot of that was just more just my thoughts on a day-to-day and let it be what I seen, what I felt, but through that there was a lot of poetry that kinda came from that. And I have a couple of songs that kind of emerge from that. There's been times where I'm just sitting in my house, I'm just strumming three, four chords, and then it's like a very memorable event from that music comes about. So it really just depends on whatever the situation is that kind of creates the music, it's not just writing or whatever else. There's a lot of different avenues that go with it.
Hassan performing with his guitar. Photo Courtesy to Hassan Shahid.
Shasa: Can you speak about your experience working on this project throughout the COVID-19 pandemic?
Hassan: Yeah, I mean, it was a blessing, I think, to be able to have... I think I would have benefited a lot from more of the program if I was able to connect with some of the artists and work with them and watch them grow and develop, I think it would have been a little different. Just because of the isolation period and not really having the ability to connect with artists the way we want to, just because everybody is so separated, and also I was trying to social distance. But towards the end of my project, it definitely came together and I had all my music and I had all the songs there, but I just had to make it more musical, so I did a lot more collaboration pieces over the last couple of months. And after doing that, I just wish I would have done more of that earlier. But I still feel like in terms of representation, I think I gave them my all and I'm pretty content now, but I'm looking back at it and get some of the feedback from individuals about the actual project, but it's just trying to figure out if people are gonna actually be able to take in what it's actually there.
Hassan: I don't know, it was difficult. Just with everything going on, there's a lot of emotions, I've been up and down. With just George Floyd, to burnings, to self-isolation, people dying... It was emotionally very draining, trying to create music. But I tried to just create music that hopefully that people can really feel my true emotions, and the intent of it is that they can have healing through the actual music and lyrics itself, and I just did that for hopefully just by being vulnerable and try to be raw with that.
Shasa: I grew up in Southwest Minneapolis. That part of the city was really not racially diverse when I was growing up, and I was hyper aware of the fact that I really stood out as a Black woman. So I'm curious if you could speak to what part of Minneapolis you grew up in, and then also could you talk about your experiences growing up being Black and Muslim in whichever part of Minneapolis that was?
Hassan: Yeah, so growing up, I kinda grew up everywhere in the Twin Cities, I mean, I think I was born in Saint Paul, but I grew up in North Minneapolis. I went to Lincoln Elementary School. I grew up in Brooklyn Park, to Fridley, to Columbia Heights. I went to school over South Minneapolis over at Roosevelt. I just kind of had a lot of experiences of just the Twin Cities. I mean being Black and Muslim, I think I was very sheltered from a lot of things that are influences of what, maybe, most people dealt with just because I came from conservative Islam, and my mom just would not let me go out the house unless she knew exactly where I was going and also just did a really good job. I was very sheltered. It wasn't until I got to, actually, high school and just taking a bus from Columbia Heights and to South Minneapolis that I actually started to have more just interaction with society and whatnot.
Hassan: So yeah, I grew up over in the Twin Cities, and it wasn't until high school that I started to see some of those things that you spoke about. The separations of people. My mom always told me people are racist and stuff like that, but she always did a pretty good job of just having me inside the Muslim community. So I didn't really see much of that. And then when I went to college, you start to really just start to see those lines are really divided. Just the way that people look at you. Back then, I had dreadlocks, I was kind of just like the hippie guy, free spirited, but I think I got more of a taste of just how racism works as I started to have my own experiences with it.
Hassan when he was a college student. Photo Courtesy to Hassan Shahid.
Hassan: I mean, Twin Cities is definitely like, they say "nice nasty." You know, they smile in your face, but they don't really care too much or invest much of anything inside of you. I don't know, it's kind of hard to explain, but yeah, I don't know.
Hassan: It goes deep into how people interact with each other, how they value, how they look at you, how they perceive you before they actually speak to you, just how they treat you versus how they treat other people. Especially, you see it inside of settings whenever there's youth involved. How they treat white youth versus Black youth. And how they do more policing inside of certain environments where if it was a bunch of white students, it wouldn't be like that. I seen that growing up and inside the high schools myself, also just within working with youth as well and advocating for them, I would see how they would treat my Black youth that I would be advocating for. So it's definitely there, but it's more just very undertone racism. It’s more like "we just don't want them being loud," or whatever else it is, or "we just wanna make sure that everybody else feels safe and comfortable," but like what are you trying to say? This is supposed to be a place where everybody should be able to be seen as equals, and it's not the case most of the time.
Shasa: Can you speak to some artists that you really like to listen to that have impacted your relationship with music? And just in general, some favorite musicians that you like?
Hassan: Yeah, I really like Kid Cudi. I think he's, emotionally, just had all these breakdowns outside of his music that you see that he goes through and it translates in his music. And he doesn't make happy music all the time. Or it's blissful but it's blissful in a way that like, he's just like accepting of certain realities. I appreciate that. Just that diversity in terms of his emotions. He took breaks from his chemical dependencies and then he jumped back into smoking again. But allowing that space for you to know, to accept, that there's room to grow. Other artists that I like... you know, they vary. I like music that is meditative. Usually I like instrumentals. The reason I started doing a lot of music is 'cause I was struggling trying to find music of substance. I love tons of music. I think Kid Cudi's is pretty cool. I love Jack Johnson. I love Ben Harper. Bob Marley's cool.
Hassan with his son. Photo Courtesy to Hassan Shahid.
Shasa: You're a father and that's an important part of this whole project, including the title. Would you be willing to speak about your relationship to your father and how it informs you assuming the role of a father?
Hassan: I know my dad now, and I knew him back then, but his role in my life was very minimum, let it be his... Whatever his situation and his story is, my dad wasn't around. My mom was a single parent and I did have step-fathers, but I didn't have that privilege to have a father who was there. And I think now, how it affects me now, I really do try to be [in] my child's life, and I had deal with a lot of systemic issues that prevent me being able to be involved because the way that our infrastructure of the system within the Twin Cities is built, and probably nationally, it's not really built for the favor of men. It’s built towards... taking the men outside of the equation, and that's how you are able to sustain a lifestyle. So, it's very difficult for me being a father because I constantly find myself having to fight. And I don't really like fighting. I'm usually a very free flowing and [I] just kind of navigate around it, but I find myself constantly having to fight with my co-parent as well with the system to validate me as a father, because honestly, it's easier for me not to be a father, than it is to be a father, and I think that's a reality that I have to wake up every day. All I wanna do is just be there every day from my son, and I'm not given that option.
Catch Hassan Shahid’s performance of “Songs For My Ummah: A Black Muslim Father’s Exploration in Vulnerability” premiering online on Sunday, March 7th as part of this year’s virtual Cedar Commissions. Tickets are on sale here.
