The British ex-offenders turned rappers who are releasing tracks with Columbia Records
Round up a crew with a long track record in street gangsterism, drug-dealing and armed robbery, then hand them the keys to a state-of-the-art recording studio; it’snot a methodology for tackling offending behaviour that you will find in a Ministry of Justice manual.
Yet this formula is being embraced by Sony Music’s Columbia Records in a unique British-based experiment aimed at breaking the cycle of crime, while also resetting the societal reputation of rap music by showing that it can be a powerful educational and therapeutic tool.
From late 80s gangsta rap to today’s drill music, hip-hop culture has been accused by social conservatives of glorifying criminal behaviour in its lyrics.
But the nine rappers who contribute to Columbia’s new EP, Key4Life Volume One, have infused positive messages into rhymes that describe their time on the streets and behind bars.
That sense of hope is a consequence of their work with Key4Life, a Somerset-based charity that takes disaffected young men who have been in prison or are at risk of being locked up, and puts them on a seven-point rehabilitation programme that includes being in the countryside and spending time around horses.
The approach is combined with work placements that have helped reduce Key4Life’s reoffending rates to 16 per cent (compared with the national rate of 64 per cent).
Birmingham rapper Creepa was the co-ordinator of the EP and says the project’s primary aim is “getting young people to listen to it and understand and change their minds on a street life”.
A talented young footballer who was on the books of Wolverhampton Wanderers and West Bromwich Albion, he came off the rails and was jailed for armed robbery at the age of 17.
In Bristol’s Ashfield young offender institution he encountered Eva Hamilton, who founded Key4Life as a response to the London riots of 2011, and persuaded the governor to allow her to bring horses and music artists into the jail.
Creepa was among the prisoners intrigued enough to join the programme. He says: “Being in prison we didn’t think that we were going to see horses inside there, so we were, ‘Wow, this is crazy!’”
Hamilton says that music is a means to “unlocking the pain” for the young offenders. “We get them to write [rap verses] and then to perform; it’s a way of them beginning to unlock,” she says.
“A lot of their very early writings with us will be very negative, and then they release the pain and start looking to a much brighter future.”
The EP project began after she persuaded Columbia Records president Ferdy Unger-Hamilton and Sony Music executive DJ Semtex, a stalwart of the UK hip-hop scene, to visit a Key4Life project inside Brixton prison in south London.
Among those performing was Creepa – now an established rapper with more than a million views on video platforms including JDZmedia and GRM Daily.
Sony, whose $100m Global Social Justice Fund has supported more than 300 organisations worldwide so far, brought in Fred again (producer of three Ed Sheeran No 1s) and Jevon to produce the EP’s five tracks.
Semtex, who attended recording, praises the “lyrical excellence” of the nine rappers. While he says there is a “fine line” between authentic street tales and the glorification of violence, rap can be “almost like the modern-day blues – reflecting on what you did and how wrong it was”.
He notes that stars of the booming UK rap scene, such as Giggs, Potter Payper and the Sony artists Headie One and J Hus, have all served time.
Rawry, who grew up around south London gangs and lost a friend and close relative to gun murders before he was 15, walked into Key4Life because he feared he was on course for prison after a legal dispute thwarted his plans to be a clothing entrepreneur.
“I was able to meet a lot of great people who have been very supportive and helpful, and every time I have got in trouble they have had my back,” he says.
Key4Life lyrics
I was locked up boxed up in a cell on my own at 17 years old
I was on remand so no one knows when I’m coming home
I was speaking to my darg on the phone
I said yo bro when I come home I swear I’m coming for the throne
(Creepa)
Dragged up round dope fiends
ODs with broke dreams
The judge don’t know G
That sentence came boldly
Hit when I wokesy
Locked up with no key
My mumsy she told me
She’s been missing the old me
I told her I broke free
Six years and I go free
Back out on the low key
(Mezza)
Sometimes I wonder, how can I get so I still sliding under – double entendre,
Cash on me, no credit card,
Split man up in seven parts,
Said to myself gotta do this now,
Might not get no second chance,
Press to start, damn I ain’t ever flex so hard,
My cuzzy out this month, and he just 7 calm, in gym doing legs and arms,
Mask on like Covid,
Cos I gotta get notes in,
Then I press restart
(Rawry)
Fred again on the synthesiser,
While I do a lil rap about Key4Life,
Had a bit of growing up to do but now I’m wiser,
Thanks to them my whole future’s looking brighter, even cut down on the cider,
Avoiding all the snakes and the liars, cuz I’m getting tired, of always getting fired up,
Stop wasting my life getting psyched up, hyped up, over petty lil fighters,
Hence why I decided, maybe I could be a writer.
(Curtis Blow)
Some of the Key4Life rappers have rural backgrounds. Mezza grew up around addicts in Bridgwater, Somerset, and was jailed after he became a drug dealer himself.
Rap has always been his release, he says: “Not only in prison but through my childhood, when I wanted to escape a situation that I didn’t want to be in, the music would always take me away from it.”
Today, these young men stand on the cusp of rap fame with one of the world’s biggest labels. But they have other options too.
Mezza now sells burgers and ice creams in Somerset beauty spots. Rawry is about to start training as an electrician. And Creepa has a new job with an employment charity and has moved into a three-bedroom house.
“Know How It Goes (feat. Jevon)” is out on 3 September. “Let It Go” is released on 17 September. The Key4Life Vol.1 EP is out on 1 October
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