These days, the Star City is home to a wide array of entrepreneurs, creatives and community-builders from around the world … and right down the road. In each installment of our blog series, you’ll meet a new face who’ll share their spin on the Roanoke Valley – their favorite places to eat, drink, connect or get inspired. In this installment, we talked to local lyricist and rapper Dionte’ Hall, who produces music under the name Taye the Truth.
When you hear the name Dionte’ Hall, if you grew up in the Valley, you might think of the 6’1” offensive tackle at William Fleming High. If you currently have school-aged children, you might know Hall as the football coach at Hidden Valley Middle, or as a mental health associate at the Rivermont School. But these days, he also wants you to begin seeing him in his newest role: that of rapper and lyricist Taye the Truth.
Hall, 30, first began tinkering with lyrics when he took a class in the history of hip-hop during his senior year of high school. To his surprise, the quiet, self-proclaimed introvert discovered a way to express feelings he couldn’t otherwise access.
“I went through this journey,” he says. “Growing up, I felt like as a man, you couldn’t really [say], ‘I’m sad.’ But now I’ve found this medium to be able to get my thoughts out and share them with people.”
Still, for almost a decade after he first began to write, Hall kept his work quiet, sharing it only with close friends and family members. It wasn’t until he began attending local open-mic poetry groups like Soul Sessions and Soul Serenity that he found the courage to actually share his words with a crowd.
“They kind of brought me in and treated me like family, and I got comfortable enough to speak on the mic,” he remembers. “Two years ago, I never would have been able to perform at the Juneteenth celebration with a thousand people there… It’s way out of my comfort zone, but I’m getting more comfortable with it.”
Hall’s music has a decidedly raw, confessional quality that invites close listening. Take, for instance, his recent EP, “Broken King,” which released in January. If you’re expecting the project to open with big beats and stereotypical braggadocio, you might be surprised when the first track unfolds quietly, without any instrumentation at all. It’s just the artist’s voice in your headphones, musing over the mystery of his own genesis, the Middle Passage, and how those events converge. The effect is to put the listener immediately in a place that feels deeply intimate – even private.
“I just want them to be able to take a peek inside my brain,” says Hall, who also hopes his listeners hear, “that it’s really okay to express yourself. That it’s okay to be vulnerable.”
Hall’s lyrics tell the story of a young man finding his way, grieving the loss of a brother to a 25-year prison sentence … and finally cultivating the confidence he needs to release his words into the world. Running through all of that is the image of a budding artist deeply connected to his community:
“Man, I love my city,” he raps in the EP’s fourth track. “Six years away from home got me feeling homesick / waiting for my moment … City with the star, you already know it.”
Here’s what this deep-rooted Roanoker has to say about the local spots he loves best…
Q: It think we’re all grateful to be back at our favorite restaurants this summer. What are yours?
DH: One of my childhood friends opened up a restaurant called Granny’s Grill in Vinton, and I really love to go there… If you like hot food, they have a jerk burrito. It’s really good, but it’s really hot! I [also] like Cheesesteak Factory a lot… I like to go to Ike’s Kitchen … [And] there’s a small little store across from the West End Center called Heavenly Foods. They have a really good fish dinner. I like to go to small restaurants that I can’t go to other places.
Q: How about a favorite place for a drink (whatever “drink” means to you)?
DH: I’ve been hanging out downtown more because of Soul Sessions and Soul Serenity, so Shishka is good. Fork [in the Market] is good. I also go out with coworkers every once in a while, and we’ll go to Golden Cactus. My friend does music bingo at Martin’s, so I’ll go there, too.
Q: How about arts and live music venues or community meeting spaces? Are there any you’re excited to be visiting again?
DH: Anywhere I can hear live music, I’ll probably be there … Soul Sessions recently has had a band there, and I got to do some stuff with them. Fork in the Market will bring in bands … Humble Hustle does their pop-up events, too, where they bring in artists they collaborate with.
Q: Where do you go to find inspiration for your music?
DH: I’ll walk the Greenway from time to time just to get some sunlight and fresh air, [but] I try to tell myself, it’s better to be disciplined than inspired, because I’m not always inspired. So I kinda gotta do it anyway!
Q: Can you think of any best-kept secrets in our city … places other readers may not have discovered yet?
DH: I have to go back to the poetry events [Soul Sessions and Soul Serenity]. I feel like not enough people know about them.
Q: Are there any other musicians or creatives in Roanoke who inspire you?
DH: [Educator and community historian] Jordan Bell. He’s done so much in the community, him and Xavier Duckett [of Humble Hustle]. Macklyn [Mosley] just dropped his album, so he’s doing musically really well. My friend Ty Tyler Ty, he’s a really dope artist; I’d really like to work with him at some point. I worked with him on the We Are Art project, and everyone in that project is really, really cool. There are so many people doing music here … There’s so much to consume.
Q: What’s keeping you encouraged right now?
DH: There’s so much positivity that came with starting my music journey. Just that is really encouraging.
To keep up with Taye the Truth’s music and performance schedule, follow him on Instagram.
Stay tuned for our next installment of Roanoke According To …
About the Writer:
Ashley Wilson Fellers is a writer, educator, self-taught painter and contemplative photographer in Roanoke, Virginia. When she isn’t teaching writing at Virginia Western, she snaps photos of sidewalk cracks, rescues wet leaves from windshield wipers and leaves poems hidden under park benches. She has a Master of Fine Arts degree from Virginia Tech.
