“There I am, twelve years old, single mom, nowhere to go. No one told me how to be a man.”
This is part of Josias Torres’ story, a senior communication major and co-creative director for Storytelling Project (STP), rapping in “Fragments,” a song on the new Storytelling Project album “I Think It Can Fly.” In the song, Torres recounts how the death of his father caused him to deepen his relationship with God. He shares how he experienced growing up fast because of how quickly he had to tackle adult decisions, but that, even through those hardships, he realized, “there was still beauty inside.”
The new album, “I Think It Can Fly,” was an opportunity to share a part of his life with the world.
“Fragments” was co-written by Izzie Thom, a senior psychology major and a poet-artist for STP, a team of student artists. She said the tracks ascend in order from “brokenness to hope.”
The song highlights Torres at 12. Having just lost his dad, he had to take on a more fatherly role to his sister. Not long after, his family left his childhood home in Schiller Park, IL in pursuit of the “new life God was calling them to.”
Torres comes in after Thom, who sings the song’s beginning: “All I saw were the pieces, but there’s something inside. I found faith in the fragments because the hope was alive and I think it can fly.”
The album starts with a song about bad theology, “Fallacies,” whose placement, Thom said, incites the listener to become “comfortably uncomfortable.” Next is “Everything’s Fine!” a song about the complexity of social life as a young adult.
Thom’s vision for the album was for it to “provide a space for telling truth that can be painful.” She wasn’t the only one to help that come to fruition. In addition to Thom and Torres, all STP members contributed to the album through writing, singing, rapping, producing, artwork or brainstorming.
Thom wrote “Fragments” with Torres. The song was meant as a turning point in the middle of the album. The idea for the work came while Thom was in a piano practice room in Armerding Hall. As soon as she played it for the team, they immediately got to work at the studio. The piece, she reflected, came at the right time, providing hope to the team members who were each having a difficult year.
As a singer-songwriter in the album, Thom did some production work, though she spent most of her time behind the scenes either writing or working on the instrumentation with piano or guitar with Clara Malek, a senior studying music history and English literature.
Reflecting on the purpose of the album, Thom’s greatest hope was for others to see God’s presence in the whole story — in the album and in their own lives.
“He’s loving and he’s true even in the midst of the lies we believe and the brokenness when things fall apart,” she said.
Donovan Michel, a senior studying biblical and theological studies, and Jordan Lee, a senior studying computer science, had a similar purpose in mind. They felt that their work on the album depended on their vulnerability and honesty. They hoped that honesty would enable other students to feel less alone.
“I’m going to tell the brutal truth about myself. And that will hopefully speak for a lot of people and speak to things that they are feeling and thinking and not saying,”
Michel and Lee were artists in the album for STP, whose mission is for every student to feel “seen and heard.” Historically, the team has worked towards that purpose through music, visual art, videography, social media content and other larger projects. One consistent project each year since the group’s founding in 2018 has been producing an album.
In years past, the album’s content was largely dependent on those who had shared their stories inside a box-like recording closet, Studio 127, in the lower level of the Beamer Center. Students could step inside the studio and record themselves responding to a storytelling prompt. Then, a member of STP would make a song based on the student’s story.
However, this year, that process shifted. This album was more reliant upon the stories of past STP members. To come to this conclusion, Lee and others on the team reevaluated how the group’s mission was still being carried out. It was through that discussion Lee said, when truth-telling about the team and friends became the focus.
Michel said the album details “walking through the messiness that comes with life, being able to call it what it is, but also sharing hope at the same time.”
Michel said that he was able to share and connect most personally in tracks two and three on the album, “Everything’s Fine!” and “Everything’s Fine, pt. 2.” “Living on the edge, I’m just tryna take the edge off,” he raps.
Michel described the tracks as something that he felt Wheaton students could relate to — the experience of striving for recognition or popularity. But those motives “aren’t worth living for,” he said.
“I’m not sure I fit the frame. I’m learning how to play the game. I’ve made them all to know my name. But, but, but, but it still don’t feel the same,” Michel continues in the song.
Part two of the song also resonated with Torres. His love for people, he stated, sometimes leads toward the temptation to please others instead of God, which he said from personal experience “doesn’t fill you up.”
The album concludes its thematic journey with “Potter and the Peace,” a song centered on hope written by Thom and Adaliah Gonzalez and sung by Emma Corsi. Gonzalez, a junior studying communication and the current co-creative director for STP, related to this piece because of how it portrayed uncertainty. She felt like the song spoke to her circumstances in the chorus alone.
“You’ve taken off edges and cut away things I thought that I needed to be happy and free.
But you are the potter, and I am the piece, and I want what you want me to be,” the chorus goes.
Gonzalez and the other members of the STP team shared their experiences with the belief that they were showcasing something bigger than themselves.
“When you capture the heart and soul of a story, you’re capturing God’s hand in someone’s life,” Gonzalez said.
