Smashing the stigma with Ziad Jabero and Plank
Over the past 2 weeks the young people of our Youth Music Collective “PLANK!” have been working with the incredible songwriter/freelance artist Ziad Jabero to write a song about challenging attitudes and assumptions about people who are affected by poor mental health and broader mental health conditions.
After briefly introducing Ziad to the group, their dynamic and current sounds and genres they’d been exploring, the young people took the lead on creating a groove with Ziad’s assistance. The result was a sludge-punk and rap influenced bop with scope for an intensely lyric-heavy verse and a pop punk chorus that flowed really naturally. With the foundation in hand, the group began to work on lyrics. The process for this was very much led by the young people. Ziad opened the floor and welcomed themes and thought up some keywords that they thought fit the theme of challenging stigma and also some references to things they had experienced living with their own mental health issues. From this the group carved out some lyrics from the words they had thought up and slowly but surely they had a powerful song with an even more powerful message behind it. They rehearsed this song and made sure that we were tight and confident in what the band had written. After this the group came up with a structure for the song before the session ended.
In the second session they played through what we had written the previous week and added some new verse lyrics that had been written up during the week. They finalized a structure to the song and decided to add a bass breakdown that had been written by one of our new bassists and a guitar solo written by our lead guitarist. The group practiced the song more to make sure they had the song sorted and ready for it was time to record it. The band took 3 recordings of the song with Ziad helping us get the best sound that they could. In the end the band had then written and recorded a whole new song with brand new members also in only 2 sessions which to me is amazing.
All in all the band really benefited from having Ziad there to help them write a song as it brought a new way of writing to their repertoire. It brought a different dynamic to the way that they work and also the way that they think about what they are writing. Ziad also was a great example for the band of a different style of leadership as the band to this point are used to myself and James’s ways and styles of facilitation. The result of all of this is their song that is being mixed currently by James and will be premiered at the upcoming event Smashing the Stigma in which some of the band are also involved in.
The song is to be premiered at an upcoming online event called “Smashing The Stigma!” that aims to bring to light the many ways people with lived experience of poor mental health are using the arts to challenge public stigma through discussion and sharing of work.
On the 10th of October the event Smashing the Stigma was launched and live streamed on twitch.tv. This Stream was aimed at challenging some stigmas around the issue of mental health. It did this by giving people, especially young people, a place to speak their mind about their own issues with mental health and how the arts helps them through these issues.
During this stream I had 3 amazing guest speakers talking about their experiences of mental health but also how the arts helped them through it so that we could start to talk about the stigmas behind it. One of these guest speakers was also one of the members of the youth band that recorded and wrote the song and was in fact one of the main writers of the lyrics within it. This particular participant went on to speak a lot about the way that coming to these youthband sessions has helped them get through a lot of their mental health issues. In this event we answered questions such as ‘What role can the arts play in the management of mental health issues and the stigmas surrounding them?’ and ‘What assumptions do people have towards you being an artist with mental health issues?’. We discovered a common theme that the arts was a big part of a lot of people's lives and that for the majority of people on the stream it was the biggest thing that helped them through their mental health issues.
During the event Plank’s new song was premiered and it sounded amazing! It had everyone dancing and the people watching the stream were full of praise for the band's new absolute BOP. we had our youth band members talk about this song as it had a big focus around mental health and challenging stigmas around it such as ‘why can’t you just smile and get on with life?’ and ‘If you have an eating disorder why can’t you just eat like everyone else?’
In conclusion The group really benefited from the sessions with the great Ziad Jabero as it has shone a new light on music writing and how writing in different styles can help you not only progress your musical skills but also broaden your knowledge of music as a whole.
