TARIQ AL-SABIR

BIOIf it’s true that an artist spends their entire life recording their debut album, then Tariq Al-Sabir’s wealth of experiences are a reservoir of anecdotes and inspiration. Praised as a “boundless talent” by Baltimore’s City Hall, the renowned educator, producer, composer, and music director steps into a new chapter as a recording artist. “All those things are complementary to one another. The solo artist act is everything you see splattered elsewhere into the world put in one place,” the 30-year-old polymath explains. “In my mind, I’ve always been working towards being a solo artist.”

For almost as long as Al-Sabir can remember, chords, melodies, and lyrics have echoed in hishead, waiting to become songs. Raised in Northeast Baltimore, Al-Sabir’s earliest musical memories include listening to local radio station 92Q and weekends split between church and themosque, enthralled by the musicality he heard during prayer. Further expanding his musical imagination were Alan Menken’s fantastical Disney soundtracks and the musically dense and expressive songs of Stevie Wonder. In third grade, Al-Sabir graduated from obsessive listener to songwriter. After hearing an Eminem, Tupac, and Biggie mash-up that used a Willie Nelson sample, Al-Sabir’s self-driven desire to create led him to write verses to the instrumental, even recruiting a singer from school to perform a hook he penned. During middle school, his dreams grew even more ambitious. He wrote a musical about a child whose songbook was stolen by a famous artist, entered his writing into a local competition, and eventually won the grand prize: having his show performed in a no-frills production at Baltimore Center Stage. The composer-minded approach to creating music Al-Sabir developed as a child manifested into something more tangible in his teenage years when he received a scholarship to take lessons at the Peabody Institute of Johns Hopkins. In 2006, he scored his first-ever job as a lead vocalist forthe season 4 rendition of the theme to HBO’s The Wire.

After graduating from the Baltimore School for the Arts, Al-Sabir continued his classical training as an undergraduate at the Peabody Institute, sharpening his resonant tenor in operas while dabbling in R&B and other contemporary styles as side projects.Now a faculty member at the Peabody Institute and based in New York, Al-Sabir has developed a reputation as a sought-after collaborator, working with Meshell Ndegeocello, Caroline Polachek, Toshi Reagon, Meredith Monk, Barry Eastmond, and more. In 2016, he was a speaker at TedxMidAtlantic, discussing his involvement in projects with music, justice, and music education for children of color in Washington D.C. and Baltimore. In 2017, Al-Sabir premiered commissioned work at The Lincoln Theatre, National Sawdust, and Joe’s Pub. “I like collaborating with artists in ways that challenge us to do something that we might not do all the time,” he explains about his collaborative philosophy.