Music4HH features in Bordesley Green newsletter

Esther, our project manager sent this article to the Bordesley Green Detached Project newsletter about our project.

More behind-the-scenes footage

Here's a video showing an insight into our glamorous lives as music producers. Our fantastic photographer Imke has sent over the finished pictures so look out for them here soon.

Fun sessions at the Pump!

A little video showing the hi-jinks we get up to at the Pump. It's a bit misleading, we actually spend most time in the studio rather than playing ukulele. But only film the ukulele bits apparently.

New logo!

Younus has designed another great logo to mark the start of our new set of sessions in the recording studio. Thanks Younus!

Quantize!

We started a new set of sessions last week! This mini-project is called QUANTIZE and it's a bit different from what we've been doing so far! Some of the young people from Naseby and Hutton have joined with some new recruits to write, record and produce a CD of their own music. This is taking place at The Pump, which has a professional recording studio and lots of useful specialised spaces for these workshops. It's a much better environment for these sessions really, as the youth centres were often busy and provided lots of distractions.

We're working with MC Vice (James) from Street Soul Productions plus some special guests to create this exciting project! I think it's really great that by the end of it, the young people will have learnt so many new skills (writing, studio recording, CD production) and will have a brilliant end product that they can keep.

Our first session last week focussed on working together and producing a concept for the songs, and writing some first lyrics. We also had a little introduction to the recording studio, and ate lots of biscuits.

As always, if you are under 18 and live in the Hodge Hill area (or know anyone who'd be interested) get in touch by leaving us a comment, message us on twitter @Music4HH or via facebook.com/music4hh, email music4hh@gmail.com.

Rapping!

We've come to the end of our sessions on rapping, beatboxing and lyric writing. Here are some of the tracks that our young people have created with James!

These two are from the youth clubs, so James had more time to work with them on lyrics and got their input about what the backing should sound like. He also sampled some of their beatboxing and included that too.
Naseby crew - Drastic by Music4HH
Arceus - character rap - norton hall session 2 by Music4HH

And these are from the sessions at the hospital:
Mckenzie - character rap - heartlands hospital session 3 by Music4HH
Haider AND Baabar - The Adventure by Music4HH

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

New logo!

Our third excellent Kids United logo, in honour of the start of our new set of sessions. Designed by the talented Younus. Thanks Younus!

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

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