Beatboxing!

We have also had some beatboxing sessions recently, from the Beatbox Twins. This part of the project is really exciting, there are so many different things going on!

Here are some videos from early sessions. They mainly consist of making really stupid noises. Beatboxing takes lots of practice. This is something I've learnt from these sessions. Also, you often get very lightheaded and need to drink a lot of water otherwise you feel like you're going to pass out. I don't know how they do it!

Here's a demonstration of what the Beatbox twins can do:

And here's some of our participants! Farzan at Naseby:

Younus and Forid at Hutton:

Curtis at our youth centres

Curtis also led some sessions at Hutton Hall and Naseby Centre, focussing on what the young people wanted to talk about. The young people wrote their own lyrics, a minimum of 8 lines was set as a target. Here are some examples of their work!

Curtis with Forid and Mahfuz, last week's official best rappers!

Our first rap session!

Our next few months of sessions cover a few different styles and we have invited 3 young artists to lead workshops in beatboxing and rapping. Our first music leader, Curtis Clacey, helped our young people to write their own raps after wowing us all with his freestyle skills!

Here's a selection of some of our young people's work on a subject of their choice:

I got a favourite wrestler called AJ Styles 
He can run a mile but never has a trial
He never fears with no tears so he turn up his gears until he cheers
He calls his rival Mangi-Ray then whacks him with a tray
Until Mangi-Ray pays
They always fight when they have the highest height
before night they feel tight after they become bright but not white

Mans go gym to get hench get slim
Flexin muscles on the road with the fresh trim
Thanks to habus for the skin fade now I can rock the black shades
Rollin on Alum Rock Road keeping beef to myself like am told
Life isn't about the money or the fame being in the game without a big name

 There are mini cats
In school I learnt my maths
I just passed my SATs
I wanna work in a bank
Not to get fired and get a spank

Everyone always blame me
I go on flame I'll go on my game
I always lose on my shame and my game is so lame
and I'm always in pain on my game

And here's a video from Naseby - with a bonus demo from Curtis :-)

DJ showcase 28th May

We had an amazing time with DJ Moyma learning about DJing, dancing and graffiti. To celebrate the end of the sessions and show off what we learnt,  we put together two "performances" on Monday 28th May (one at Naseby Centre and one at Hutton Hall.) This was a chance for our young musicians to showcase their new skills and experience what it is like to DJ, MC and dance to a crowd.

Everyone did really well.

Naseby Centre dancers

Hutton Hall DJs

DJ showcase!

Next Monday (21st May), our DJs will be showcasing their skills at Naseby Centre (5pm) and Hutton Hall (6.30pm). Come along to learn about hip hop culture, music and dance. Free entry!

Some more graffiti

Rory at Heartlands Hospital

Fazaan at Naseby Centre

Fazaan AKA DJ Biggy

DJ Bash at Naseby Centre

DJ Bash

DJ Techno

DJ Ishy

DJ Bullet Squash

DJ Techno, DJ Ishy and DJ Bullet Squash at Hutton Hall

Our young DJs in action

Some videos of our DJs from Hutton Hall, taken from weeks 4 and 5 of our project (March 2012.)

Featuring:

DJ ISHY

DJ BULLET SQUASH

DJ AKI ICE

DJ TECHNO

DJ BABES

DJ KEMPS

Some videos from our roving reporters

We asked some of the young people taking part in our project to video each other talking about music. They each came up with a set of questions and carried out some excellent interviews! Thanks guys: Bashir, Farzan, Younus and Forid.

Our guest blogger returns! - DJ Bullet Squash

Hello everybody. I have been a musician for nearly 5 years. I had played many instruments and I performed at school many times and Symphony Hall. I am a very confident person.

Kids United are going to perform in Hutton Hall 6:30-7:30 (on Monday 21st May) and I am going to be the host of the performance. I am following Kids United on Twitter @Music4HH. Also if you want to reply back reply to Christina. (@Music4HH or leave a comment on this blog! - Christina)

DJ Bullet Squash (Forid)

Yet more graffiti!

Turns out, I've been spelling "graffiti" wrong this whole time. Oh well. The final (I think!) batch of graffiti art to show you - we have some really talented artists at Kids United! DJing has been really popular with all sorts of young people turning up to try it out - we are seeing new faces practically every week.

DJ Ishy. Love the face and the colours!

DJ Sufi. Brilliant concept! And a great drawing. Well done Ishyy!

DJ Techno. Amazing!

Learning about graffiti!

The last couple of sessions with Moyma have been about graffiti art. In the first session, we learnt about tags and how they are created. Then last session, we looked at graffiti art and how we could design a logo using graffiti-style lettering. Moyma brought along examples of artwork he has created for other DJ artists, along with some examples of different types of graffiti lettering. The young DJs started to create their own logo using the different graffiti lettering along with pictures and shapes. Here are some of the works-in-progress!

These are from young people on the Children's Ward at Heartlands Hospital and at Hutton Hall and Naseby Centre.

DJ Anees

DJ Babes

Jules

DJ Luciee

This is the new logo Younus (DJ Techno) from Hutton Hall designed for us.

Even Esther and me had a go (Esther is the Project Co-ordinator, I'm the Project Intern).

DJ EJ

My first tag!

Graffiti art

Last week our DJ artist, Moyma, did some graffiti art sessions with the young people at Hutton Hall and Naseby Centre. He showed some examples of graphic art and explained how tags are like brand names for companies. Our young DJ artists developed their own personal tags by experimenting with different fonts and styles and adding pictures and graphics. Graffiti is an integral part of hip hop culture and it's great how Moyma includes learning about these things in our DJ sessions.

DJ Bullet Squash

Mr Xtreme

DJ Techno

DJ Yahya

Video: Hip hop dance at Hutton Hall 12.03.12

Hip hop dancing from a DJ workshop with DY Moyma at Hutton Hall.

DJing!

DJ Moyma on the Children's Ward at Heartlands Hospital

Our DJ sessions have started with the excellent DJ MOYMA (www.moyma.co.uk). Young people on the Children's Ward at Heartlands Hospital and from Naseby Centre and Hutton Hall have been learning about hip hop culture, including its history as well as DJing and dancing, and have had the chance to try mixing and scratching some records. This is a really exciting new part of the project, and it's very popular with the participants :) More and more people are turning up each week, which is great! Sessions at Naseby Centre (5-6pm) and Hutton Hall (6.30-7.30pm) are open to any person under 18.

Younus and Moyma at Hutton Hall

Today's guest blogger: Forid!

My name is DJ Bullet Squash.

I joined music because it is fun and I like DJing and any other sort of instruments and I am very good at the keyboard. My famous piece is called Fur Elise. I learnt the keyboard for a year and DJing for a few weeks and I like electronic musics.

DJ Bullet Squash with DJ Moyma at the first DJ session

                                                         

DJ workshops start today!

Our next set of music sessions start today, DJing with MOYMA (http://www.moyma.co.uk). He'll be coming into Heartlands 3.30-4.30pm, to work with the children on Paediatrics and from James Brindley School. Then 5-6pm will be at Naseby Centre, 6.30-7.30pm Hutton Hall, both in Alum Rock. Sessions are for under-18s and are free. This should be a really fun set of workshops, I'm definitely looking forward to experiencing something new!

Kids United presents: An African drumming showcase: The Aftermath!

So we had our African drumming showcase on Monday...it was brills. I really enjoyed it, and I think all our performers did too. The audience of parents and friends was great and very supportive. It was an excellent chance for the young people to show off the skills they've been learning over the past few months, and for each of Sarah's groups to see how the other one got on!

The showcase started with an introduction from Forid (from the Hutton group) who welcomed everybody. Then the first group to play was the Naseby Centre guys - who did excellently with their 2 pieces. The young people involved were dedicated to making a good performance, which started with Heartbeat (based on a Caribbean rhythm) followed by Ijexa (from Brazil.) Bashir did a great job of introducing the tunes, and he and Nafees started the show with a dramatic duet on djembe and dun dun.

Next up, the Hutton Hall group played 2 traditional West African rhythms - Yankidi and Macrew - as well as a piece they had composed themselves, "5 Daily Foods." (So called because the patterns which they composed were based on the what they had for lunch...."fish and chips and water...") These boys have worked really hard and were really committed to their band - and they are turning into very talented musicians!

All of the performers received a certificate for Excellent Achievement in Performance of African Drumming and Sarah got a giant bunch of flowers! We all really appreciate all the hard work and time she has put in to teach these young people.

After the performance, there were refreshments and a competition to guess how many sweets in the jar. All money raised from this, and the entry fee and any other donations, are to be given to the Children's Ward here at Heartlands. (The boys' idea!)


All in all, this was a really lovely evening, I had fun joining in, and I'm really proud of all the performers. Hope to see everyone again for DJing workshops which start on the 20th :)

Kids United group from Hutton Hall performing at the showcase

DJing workshops coming soon!

From Monday 20th February, young people in the Hodge Hill area will have the chance to get involved in a series of DJing workshops, run by DJ Moyma (www.moyma.co.uk). DJing was nominated as the style most people would like to try out, so they are starting at Hutton Hall and Naseby Centre from 5pm on Monday evenings.

Kids United present: an African drumming celebration!

Our African drumming sessions are drawing to a close! Thanks to the brilliant Sarah Westwood from Drum Voice (www.drumvoice.co.uk) has been brilliant, and has given lots of children in Heartlands and across Hodge Hill the chance to experience some really different and exciting music. To celebrate the hard work of Sarah and the young people, we are having a performance showcase of African drumming, presented by Kids United: Naseby Centre, Birmingham, Monday 6th February at 6pm. Come along to see what the guys have been up to for the past few months and to try it out for yourself if you like!

 Drumming at Hutton Hall (Mondays 5-6pm) - Ismail and Ishaque concentrating hard with Sarah!