telegraph-journal (2022)

Musician’s new album tackles her leaving the church

MATTHEW DAIGLE

TELEGRAPH-JOURNAL

Saint John musician Tatyana Russell-Chipp spent 20 years of her life in the church, going to Bible college and spending four years working in ministry full-time.

By 2021, she left the church entirely due to her negative experiences in the church, building up with the covid pandemic as her breaking point as she worked as long as 70 to 80 hours per week in ministry.

Soon after she left, she said someone told her she’s now in the Second Half of her life. Through that realization, going by the stage name Tot, the 24-year-old channelled her experiences, emotions and pain from her life in the church into a new album.

“Songs were just coming out when I was in the car, when I was in the shower, when I was laying in bed at night,” said Tot.

Tot released her album Second Half back in June. She previously recorded an EP called safe at home, was featured on an album called the ride and an EP a bruised leg & a cigar or two last year.

On her album, Tot said she incorporated various genres like electronic, pop and alternative. She said one of her biggest musical influences has been the contemporary Christian music she grew up with, taking a piece of the church with her into the music.

“Pretty much all of my background in music comes from the church. I was raised in the church… whether I like it or not, stylistically, those are my foundations,” she said. “All the tracks either come from leaving the church, leaving Christianity, leaving ministry and then there are a couple of love songs in there because, of course, coming out as gay after I left, the church was also a big part of my story of falling in love with my girlfriend.”

Tot is bisexual and when she left the church she said playing music was hard at first due to the context growing up in the church. But, music eventually became a healing tool and a gift for her.

Born in russia, Tot was adopted at nine months and grew up in Newfoundland in the Pentecostal church. She said she’s also had to deal with the trauma of being adopted.

“Typically, the narrative around adoption is to be grateful, your life is better now, I get it, that’s true, my adoptive family is amazing,” she said. “As I kind of started processing this pain, I started grieving and I started really feeling all these emotions of ‘I’m actually really sad that I don’t get to know my biological family.’”

Tot said when she was processing those feelings, the church dictated that she was no longer full of joy. She said she remembers sermons where they were talking about her, but not naming her in front of the whole church. There were times when she left the church on Sundays sobbing from the embarrassment.

After graduating from high school, she moved to New Brunswick to study at Kingswood University in Sussex where she dabbled in various denominations and eventually worked in ministry full-time. She said when the pandemic hit, instead of pulling back, the church got more intense.

Growing up, she said she had community, music and a safe space in the church.

While she saw abuse like spiritual abuse, she learned growing up not to do things that made the church or God look bad.

“Because I felt safe in the church, I was all the more likely to not really acknowledge when real bad things happened,” she said.

While she’s deconstructing, she’s had both good and bad experiences. Tot said she used to be a black and white thinker because of her upbringing, but since leaving, she finds herself in the grey.

“There are parts of church world that I really miss, that I cry about,” she said. “There are Christians who really hurt me that I really miss. There are so many things that I just love about the church and about the communities that I’ve lost… at the same time, I’m pissed off at the church and I’m bothered by so many of the abuses.”