 Welcome to Pookie Ponders, the podcast where I explore big questions with brilliant people. Today's question is, could rap be the antidote to stigma when it comes to mental illness? And I'm in conversation with Emma Charlton and Joel McIlven. Yes, so I'm Emma Charlton and I manage a mental health awareness project that's called the Direct Action Project and that's on behalf of an organisation in Islington, a small community charity called The Peel and the Direct Action Project, we're Thunderbizons and Council and we work across the borough of Islington, working with young people, also parents of young children and staff working with either of those two groups, raising awareness about mental health, helping sort of bust some of the stigma around mental health. So we're not a therapeutic project, we're mental health education in its widest, most flexible sense. So partly what we do is run workshops, but we also do creative projects, such as one I've partnered with Joel and other colleagues on. So it sounds like probably a good time to hand over to my colleague Joel. I'm Joel McIlven, I'm a teacher in London, currently working at New River College, which is the pupil referral unit in Islington and I specialise in hip-hop education, which is using hip-hop and particularly rap music for me, for all sorts of educational outcomes and it's something I've been exploring for about the last 15 years in London a lot and other parts of the world. That sounds like a really cool job, hip-hop education specialist essentially, like wow, how did you get into that Joel? I mean it's a nice job when that can be the part of the job that I can promote. I trained to teach about 15 years ago in a secondary school in where I was working in Tower Hamlets and I found that I was taking a lot of time preparing lessons for kids that the lessons would be quite disastrous. So there was an awful lot of effort going into it and it was hard to see the outcomes from that and whilst I was there I also started running an after-school rap club and that was the complete opposite, whereas all I had to really do was sort of switch on the lights and switch on the equipment and they would just take over and so it was really seeing what a kind of natural and sort of powerful impact that that could have and from that moment I just sort of tried to bring it into the classroom and then really apply it anywhere I can and I think that the world can be more interesting when it's rhyming and so I'm really open to making as many words and words as I can. I think that sounds like a great way of approaching life. I went through about a three-year period where I wrote a poem every day and I found that ever since I went through that time that I think in rhyme. So I've always had an interest in rap. I've never engaged with it specifically but I've always thought I love it. I love it as an art form. I think it's amazing and wonderful. So the two of you came together kind of over a rap then so maybe Emma you can tell us a bit about the specific project which I reached out to you guys about which is Stress on the Brain and you'll summarise it far better than I ever could so yeah tell us about it. Hopefully I can summarise it well. So Stress on the Brain is a rap music video. How it came about was that Cams and Islington so I'm sure listeners know but child and adolescent mental health service we've got a schools team in it as part of our Cams and Islington who I've worked with quite a bit over the years as has Joel and they approached me and just said we really want to make initially they said a film that actually teaches young people in a really relevant way about the effect that stress has on the brain. There are some good films available on you know on the internet but the ones that they've found and I looked as well the only ones we could find were aimed at little children or they were made for American audiences and American young people which is great but not necessarily totally relevant to UK young people so they really wanted something that they could use in their work with young people and also it appealed to me because my project works young people so it's like well it'd be great to have a really good response that my team can use when we work with young people and the Islington schools can use that sort of thing. So yeah so that's how it started so Cams obviously they have this dream but that's not actually what they do they don't have the resources time etc to be making putting on creative projects and in Islington we do actually have a good network of partnership working. So then I spoke to Cam about potential partners to work with and it was one of the Cams clinicians who works at Joel's school near River College that said there's this teacher here who's a hip-hop education specialist which I had to Google that sounds great so that's how I knew the school but that's how I came to know Joel particularly and we spoke and I was convinced this would be a really effective way a really effective partnership and potentially more effective than making a sort of more traditional film. Films can be great and really powerful so but I just thought for this sort of instance making a rap video sounded like it could be really great and I looked at some hip-hop education stuff online or sort of teaching math and all sorts of things and it's clear it's a really really great medium done in the right way. So yes and then we needed the creative we needed another creative partner and in Islington we are really lucky to have a fantastic youth club youth centre called Soapbox and they're a media sort of specialist youth centre they're part of a charity called Dragon Hall and they have studios they have fantastic equipment but probably more importantly than that they have a huge amount of staff expertise and they work with really great industry artists and when I say industry artists in this context obviously we need to work with artists who are really specialists in this case in music production and video production but almost more importantly than those creative skills we need artists who can really engage with young people it's no good just be able to make an amazing video you actually have to be able to really work with young people have really good understanding about the needs and challenges of the young people as well and Soapbox provided us with two amazing artists Mr Lee's and Mr Lee's music and Mikey Barge I hope I can actually name Mikey Politi's if I haven't but they as well as being really really talented artists really got the best out of the young people so that was sort of how the partnership came together so yeah so my organisation New River College the students were from New River College so it wasn't just Joel it was also the senior leadership team at that school you know there had to be you know there was huge buy-in from the whole of the school there Soapbox and Cams and yeah we all worked together to plan set the aims objectives and to actually yeah sort of make the actual program the project work resulting in a really fantastic video which I'll insert at this point and I'll link to the to the full video because you you know you kindly made it sort of freely available via YouTube so people can use it and and that's how I first came across it someone said hey have you seen this great resource and having spent lots of time teaching on this topic and I thought well that's better than I've ever done as you're doing this you know these these young people have have put together something obviously with lots of input sounds like but but something that really speaks to them in a way that actually I never could and so it's a it's a brilliant piece of work um Joel tell me about what the um the young people who were involved thought about the the project did were they keen to be involved did they have any kind of hang-ups about it they yeah they really were keen and I think that was one of the things that I was a bit surprised by because although the medium of rap is something that they're familiar with and have a kind of interest in um partly that's why I encountered young people before I mean we kind of put off when you're trying to encourage them to rap about something which is very unfamiliar or that they understand as being outside of that um I think we were lucky that there were a couple of them who were confident as rappers and sort of wanted the opportunity to kind of and and enjoy using the language and and and the challenge of that and once there was a couple that really provided the leadership for others to be involved um I think that was partly to do to the other sort of creatives we had around them and the producer we brought a lot of energy and and the kind of high expectations of making something that was going to be really sort of powerful and kind of high quality product at the end of it but but but certainly they had an enthusiasm for it and and also a key part of it was trying to teach them the material and the ideas because they're quite complex concepts that that and and words and and ideas that are outside of perhaps what they're used to using so the the fact that that was kind of within a creative process I think made it easier for them to encounter that if you've just said right we're gonna have a lesson about the impact of stress on the brain and the kind of different parts of the brain it's quite hard to get their interest whereas because they were given that task and the sort of ownership and the need to turn that into something it really helped to engage in that way and I think it's often the case isn't it that something which might seem in the end relatively simple and I do think that's one of the great things about the the video is that it's very easy to understand what you've been told um but that actually that that comes at the end of you've got to really understand something well haven't you to be able to convey it in that in that way really really clearly and succinctly as the young people did did they like were they sort of interested in in the topic did they think it was important did they want you know they they obviously engage with the project but like did they engage with the the kind of need for it if you like Joel um I think that that that was probably a secondary thing for them but but they did and I one of the concerns that we had going in was whether the whole process because it's talking about trauma and obviously we're working with a group of young people that have experienced a lot of trauma that haven't been used to articulating their thoughts about that so there was some concern about whether the process would would trigger anything like that and and again there's other experiences that I've had of trying to teach young people about things where they will kind of avoid it or shut down or instinctively turn away from something so I think that the fact that that was experienced as secondary to them and that the the sort of creative process and engaging with the wrapping and the production was the first thing actually kind of provided a safe context in which they could then begin to explore those um issues a bit more and talk about stuff it wasn't we wanted to avoid opening up and going into their personal experiences but there were certainly some really powerful conversations where they where some of them were clearly engaging with the concepts and thinking about it but then because they could kind of then retreat into the creative process a bit that that I suppose sustained it as a safe space in that way and I think that that's that's why rap and and other kind of forms can be a really sort of powerful structure because it's a way of being able to talk about things without being forced to directly confront it that's a really interesting a really interesting point actually and I think that yeah I always found that similarly about poetry that you could go to quite deeper darker more difficult places with poetry and it felt safer somehow than doing that through sort of talking or even writing in prose you could yeah explore things quite differently Emma how did cams find what you did did it meet their aims did it did it do what you know did you did your tic done on the project I'm glad you asked that because um we have a very positive have a very positive response to that yeah cams um so cams they they sort of you know we discussed the aims of Jax at the beginning and then they were involved in not writing the lyrics but but looking at the lyrics and suggesting changes and they gave me lots of resources to sort of get my head around as well so they were very involved there at the beginning during and this ties into something that Joel said we didn't need to um actually use this in the end but the cams clinician for the school had said she would sort of be on extra hand if you like in case any of the young people did become triggered particularly by any of the sessions so so that was sort of there in the background as a as a next just sort of um give if you like from cams and then at the end they did um comments before we signed off the project they got to comment and a few little edits there's always edits that have to happen before you sign off a project um but they were extremely pleased I mean the the cams clinician who's the former lead for the school's team she actually said it absolutely exceeded her expectations and they were not just pleased with the final project but with the young people's involvement and I think this also ties into what Joel was just saying you know talking about how the young people sort of understood the the lyrics the content I for me what really tied into that was when um we had the discussions with the young people that were absolutely led by Joel about the meaning of the content um Joel and other staff at New River College a trauma informed done trauma informed practice um and I know you've had a podcast on that um in in the past I do think that was really important um because it's really nice that you said it sort of they how the final video imports imparts these complex subject matter in an easy way um but it wasn't an easy process as such um putting it all together and I think a real key part of that is that um that you know staff involved had good levels of mental health understanding um you know that the teaching staff um trauma informed um trained that all really helps bring the the whole project to um to a successful yeah to that that that was really part of its success I think it's interesting kind of understanding a bit about how the project came about and the aims and things because it feels like there's almost two parts to it there's this this product you were commissioned to create essentially and whatever happens next with that and how it's used but then actually it feels like a really important part of this was the journey for for the young people who were actually uh kind of involved in the production and I wonder Joel what you um kind of feel about how were you able to involve those young people in a really meaningful way because I know kind of co-production and and working with with young people is a really sort of it's typically expected now but I don't think it's typically done well that's a personal opinion but yeah I'd love to hear your thoughts on that Joel um I mean I think it felt from the outset that it was really ambitious the the aims that we were given for this because CAMHS had said we want a high quality product that we can use to share the information but we also want it to involve young people and and and for them to have that share in it so um I guess that's why I think going back why rap is so powerful for that and I think that as a medium because when there's this information and these key ideas that we needed to put in there and as a medium you can kind of and I did most of the initial writing putting it into lyrics is a way of kind of containing and storing information like that and I think that before before humans learned to write and developed writing songs with a way that we kept information and how information was stored and shared and passed on between people so that idea of the song is a kind of unit as a way of teaching and learning and holding information has always always been there so so that that kind of made that an accessible way to sort of hold hold what the information was and then concentrate on the creative process and get the young people involved and engage to give them the ownership for doing that and I think that again why rap is so powerful is because it is something that is authentic to young people and to young people from a kind of urban and minority background it is something that they have more authenticity and integrity with um probably than somebody who looks like me and and so these these concepts and these ideas that that might otherwise be quite alien and quite difficult to give them ownership of by putting it into this form is something that then they could engage with through discovery through putting it into their own flow and their own cadence and their own voice is it really gave them those concepts and then they could engage with that creative process and doing something that they're kind of confident with and all give the whole creative process is encouraging repetition and it's that repetition which is kind of embedding the knowledge and getting them to learn about it so that that's why I think that rap really uniquely can be a way of of taking content and ideas which are quite alien but giving it to young people in a way which is very true to themselves and this project really sort of successfully showed that I mean and do people generally get that like do do people kind of respect the art form of rap and hip hop and you know when you say that this is a way that you educate young people of people generally on board with that or do you have to do a bit of winning of hearts and minds but I think it's both I mean most most of the time that I speak to people and describe it people can immediately see the value because um well because people like rhymes as I said before and and it's something entertaining and innovative and it uses technology and and you know people have a sense of how that can be with that's the culture for young people um there is obviously on a kind of broader level and and and the sort of social conversations around that and the kind of attitudes towards rap music and hip hop and particularly drill music now but that but hip hop has always had to try to push back against that and the kind of stereotyping and the sort of accusations of negativity really. So that's something you're having to kind of actively rally against was that something that kind of came up in your conversations with the young people who were involved in this because presumably creating essentially an educational resource using rap goes directly against those stereotypes doesn't it and it and it it says directly to people out there we're not who you think we are this isn't what you think it is did the young people you are working with kind of take that point of view or they're not not so interested in that. I think the the challenge with the young people is because they they do have a sense of ownership and identity with with rap is challenging them that other things can be the subject matter of rap as well because they might have quite a narrow idea of what's appropriate and certainly initially the rappers that we had doing it that they whereas they were kind of keen and enjoyed the project they also didn't really want to share it with their friends and didn't think that other young people would take them seriously and didn't want to identify with those other things so there is definitely that there's a sort of cultural difference I suppose between the mainstream and hip hop culture and so so so being able to bridge that there's a challenge both ways really but but that's what I think why it's powerful as a medium and just by focusing on that and the process is a way of transcending those sort of differences because I think it would be equally hard to get young people to make a video or film in another form about something which they didn't really have that investment or understanding of in the first place. That's a really fascinating kind of line of discussion actually I wonder Emma if you could reflect on that a bit because you mentioned in our kind of correspondence before this about how important it was to kind of get involvements from all the partners and having like an aligned vision and it sounds like there was that potential for conflict there between the kind of the art form and the topic and whether the young people would feel pride in what they produced so I'd love to hear a little bit about how you made that work. Yeah so I think you know partnership working everyone wants that you know and it's what funders all want and everything else but I think we're all aware of you know we can all do partners so-called partnership projects where actually there isn't real sort of full buy-in from all the partners and I've certainly been involved in projects where that's been the case which has made me over the years become more and more I don't know stronger if you like in really working to get full engagement for more partners and that's not just oh yeah that's great I'm not having to pay anything for this so go ahead it's like let's all be really involved in setting the aims and objectives and working out the logistics there's a lot of logistics in organizing a project like this. I have to say this project there wasn't really ever any conflict there weren't even many differences of opinion I can't really think of differences of opinion that's unusual but that is because or a lot of that partly it's because this project in particular really lovely people I was working with but also because we had all these discussions there was months of planning again that's coming back to it looks sort of easy how the young people put the the messages across but there was months of planning mini meetings and then of course the weeks whether where we actually were on the ground with the young people so to speak recording and then the while afterwards of the editing and all the rest of it but yeah so it's just I think just sharing aims and objectives and really making sure that everyone's actively engaged and then that does filter down to the young people but you know key for me in any project that I'm doing is the young people well if they don't if they don't enjoy if they're not interested in it they're not going to do it with some school projects they might have to do it with this one the new of a college it was actually optional for the students to get involved so everyone there did want to be there but with some school projects you know that they have to be there it sort of come but but that doesn't mean they're actually going to engage so so it's really important the young people one really were interested in it but two that we did end up with a project they were going to have a lot of pride in and as Joel said it was you know that there's a challenge doing a what we tend to call product focus projects which is where that the end product is you know it's going to be really high quality and participation or on process focus projects where the main focus is on the participatory aspect which don't always end up with a fantastic end product now I've done lots of projects like that and actually it doesn't matter that the end project isn't high quality but for this it was absolutely essential so that was a challenge getting both but but yeah there is something really important when the young people can look back and have pride about what they've done and with this you know we've had over well over 17 thousand views that is blown out of the water expectations I had a desire of 3000 which got busted within about the first fortnight um and you know lots of really positive comments on the youtube channel a lot of which are from professionals but there's also somewhere um that I'm I'm pretty certain from young people um and you know that's really really does help to give a bit of pride in what they've done they can see it's a really good quality product and is really being is really being used it's going to be used by professionals across the country possibly further afield not just Sieslington and we're all really proud of that. How is it being used to be sorry Gonjal? Well I just wanted to jump in on that because I think that's would been one of the really key outcomes is that though the young people initially were a bit nervous about how it's going to be shared and how their peers would see it the fact that it's had such a positive impact that it's had so many views it's something that has really given them an awareness actually that they can make an impact beyond their peer group including their peer group and and I think it's sort of elevated their kind of self perceptions of of who they can affect really. Was there any risk that if you hadn't have been I can't see any reason why it wouldn't have been received positively but it's perfectly possible to put together a really great product and still only get you know hundred views or something and that that might not have landed well with the young people was that a risk for you guys maybe Emma? Yes it was a risk I mean it's a risk you have to take but we felt as all the partners involved we did feel really confident that it would get a good response but obviously you don't know that for definite. I think one thing that did help is that it was shown to all the staff at New River College so New River College had the secondary site but also primary and a site as part of hospital and stuff so it was shown to all the staff I don't, Joel might correct me on this, two, three months maybe before we went live on YouTube and the staff were really positive so only a handful of the staff had actively been involved so that was a really good that was a really good starting point it's like okay on a tiny tiny trial basis I showed it to like a couple of friends, children, there were young people and they were like yeah yeah I'll show this to my mates so I was like okay this this sort of helps this helps give me confidence but there's always a risk if we'd got a hundred views and if we'd got sort of negative comments that would have been tricky so I think you know I think the lesson would be if we hadn't been confident in the product I'm not sure we'd have put it out on YouTube we'd have maybe you know used it entirely within the school maybe used it internally within the Lieslington possibly but but we did feel confident that it was going to get a good response I mean we had no anticipation of the huge response it's had but but yeah I think you do if you're going to put something out on the internet out live accessible to everyone you do have to have a confidence in it and you also have to have a bit of a promotion campaign as well so media digital promotion is not my skill set I learnt quite a lot in a couple of days in trying to promote the video with the help from a lot of people and external colleagues the young people themselves kind of help in promoting it because I would imagine that they would be pretty keyed into social media because the age group you were working with I think I might pass on to Joel for that we this did go out in the middle of lockdown where students obviously they weren't actually in the school and although of course new college staff were engaging with them it did make you know obviously there just wasn't the communication with the students that they would have been in a normal term if you like but I don't know Joel you might have something to add to that yeah I I think that's it's hard to get a sense of it really because it was more limited the contact that we've had with them during the lockdown period I think that and also they tend to play a bit cool as well even though you can see that they're going to please with the response from it you know they're not they're not completely going over the top of it but I I imagine that they it also they've needed to needed to see the success to feel the confidence in it and then we'll be kind of sharing it yeah more widely I maybe not with their peers maybe not in the in the kind of conventional ways but I imagine more of their sort of families and other people that they would perceive as being the more natural audience for it I still think that in terms of their identity as rappers this is not what they would want to say to people that they rap about but but actually you know that some of them have carried on working with the producer and and sort of developing their own stuff as well and I think that that's also you know it's a limit on how how as much as this has given them some ownership of those concepts it isn't their own language it isn't their own story it isn't their own voices completely and in terms of actually the maximum impact for them is going to be when they're creating their own stories and and sort of more involved in the creative process I think and Emma how have people used the video have you had feedback from people who've actually been using it since it's gone live um well not specific feedback about it actually being used as yet um but we are of course only one week into the new school term um so when in islington we've got a well-being in schools team who have produced put together a resource pack um for students and teaching teams um for the schools to encourage the sort of around um you know just support for students returning to school after a very difficult time and of course where for some students and staff there's grandparents there's a lot of anxiety about returning into the school buildings which only you know started happening last week um so the video was included in that resource pack for our secondary schools um we've had on the youtube now not everyone who comments on youtube are commenting or saying what their organization is but a lot of those comments were clearly from professionals some we've had um people comment from organization in cornwall um quite a long way from north london brighton we also sort of found out by hearsay really that it was shared with every educational psychologist in the country which is quite small um so um my project we will be using it within our work um so although as yet i can't feedback on response it's had from using it but um i can say with a fair degree of certainty it is going to be used um a lot of it we won't hear about you know we're not going to hear we're unlikely to hear about how cornish young people um reacted to it um you might because i work with them so uh okay yeah i'll obviously start cerno so that might be where that that bridge came but you're right i mean you don't always hear how these things land um even within your direct area so no but we i think we will hear from um well obviously i'll know from when my team start using it um and also i think we'll hear from my camp cams clinicians and um a certain we should get a certain amount of feedback from schools in islington um so over the next few months um i would hope that we will be getting some feedback on how it's um how it's usually like locally how it's been um yeah how people have reacted to it locally and what would kind of success look like for you there because obviously you've got success already in terms of you know you'll have reached your impact figures and cams were happy to to sign it off and say that it's met their aims but you it strikes me that that both both of you emma and jill that you've got kind of far deeper ideas about what you you wanted this to do and for me you know the the reason i wanted to talk to you was thinking about what can we use rap to destigmatize mental health does that work and yeah just wanted you know more broadly what yeah what would success for this project look like for maybe emma you first and then perhaps hamster jill yeah so i think my ideals to success are not easy measurable but they're actually you know young people okay primarily as linkedin this is where we work um but young people anywhere can see it and get something useful out of it not necessarily understand the whole the whole of the messages but if young people can get something useful out of it that will help them and adults as well um find ways understanding what's happening when they are feeling really stressed and things perhaps getting a bit in the in the video when the lyrics is um i've got to run away from a bear you know it's like when that vital flight instinct kicks in um so if um people can learn something if it's some small thing about actually managing those responses um a bit more easily um then that for me is a really useful learning outcome that for me is more helpful than just knowing how many thousands of people have seen it however when it comes to sort of logging um success you have to go by sort of you know whatever data you can get um so the number of views is is our main feedback at the moment but hopefully as i say over the next few months we'll we'll get some idea of um more um more difficult to measure perhaps responses but um but yeah um outcomes that i feel certain will happen we just won't necessarily know about them all how about you joe what are your kind of thoughts on what success would look like for this um i think it would be great if we could expand the project really because i think that this was very successful in meeting the aims and and and as and and exceeding the aims and as a sort of model of of partnership working and of having high quality outputs with a meaningful process as well and i think that that's quite a scalable model that you know ideally we'd like to kind of create more songs that we follow on with other kind of relevant themes but i yeah i it's hard to see the impact of the individual video itself on the learning of young people i think it you know it's great if it's going to be widely used if it helps with the sort of psycho education processes i think that the model itself could be used to sort of engage more young people and then perhaps also look at other themes that maybe would resonate more personally with them also to divert you know to provide opportunities for young people to tell their own stories and to amplify those again by scaling the model up really so i think success for me is is being able to carry on with it and and explore where else it can go so it's almost like you've got proof of concept and now it's about having a bit of uh sort of trust and building ownership with the young people to explore what themes maybe really matter to them what what themes would you do do you think would be interesting to explore if you if you had those discussions with the young people um i mean i i think and i suppose throughout my career and of doing this work of kind of work work with young people on telling their own story and recording all sorts of things so i think that really it can go anywhere what what's quite interesting is actually young people who are perhaps most interested in rap and most experienced with it have more preconceptions of the sort of things that you would talk about and actually it's if you're working with young people who haven't really identified with it in some ways can be more open to rapping about different things so i i really believe that that the it's it's the medium of rap which is so powerful and in kind of giving that to other people and yeah particularly people who don't think that it's something that they can use i think that so some so really my focus is on that and expanding the opportunities whereas the actual themes itself i think has to has to be can be generated from people's own stories it's not for me to say this is what you need to write about yeah um although equally if there's something that they need to learn about writing about it in this way is i think a very good way of learning that so so so so i i think it can be anything it's just ideally should be a more widespread thing something that more people have that kind of sense of involvement with and enjoyment of and can you maybe just share a few ideas for the kind of people who might be listening and who might be less familiar with rap and might be thinking that perhaps you know this this project so it served its initial purpose in in informing us about stress on the brain but maybe for some people it might act as a stimulus for using rap for something completely different and maybe you know you have teachers or youth workers listening into this who aren't themselves familiar with rap have you got any ideas about how they could perhaps pick this up and use it as a stimulus for working with with young people or do you need to be really experienced at rap to make it work no i mean i think that there's lots of different ways of using it i think that a lot of people are put off because they they might they might not feel in affinity with it and and might not feel that they can authentically kind of engage with it but really in in my experience is it something that the moment that you can bring it into a classroom it's a sensory medium that can spark all sorts of conversations and links and connections between between students between staff and students so so that anybody can kind of find songs with that there's rap songs about everything that you could think of that you might want to bring into the classroom so you can find a song which is a stimulus for talking about that i think the that actually then the process of writing your own raps is is probably easier than a lot of people think it is but it's not a beginner's activity but it's fairly easy to learn and and if people have a go at it and i think one of the things that is so powerful is that it can bring vulnerability into the classroom and there's been studies that have done sort of looking at the kind of what the essence of hip hop education is or what characterizes hip hop educators and one of the things that was really a main feature of that is that it allows this kind of vulnerability and i think that a lot of the time a teacher doesn't want to show any weakness and there's an idea of having to be an authority whereas actually if you can bring an activity there that you're not particularly good at yourself that that's something that just showing that vulnerability is actually a really powerful thing and i mean one one of the things where i really honed my own sort of rapping was when i was doing supply teaching a few years ago and i sort of got to the point of finding that actually if i tried to do a rap freestyle at the beginning of the lesson for three minutes it was a lot more effective at getting the attention of the class rather than just yelling at them to be quiet because i had to take the register and a lot of the times it was completely disastrous luckily enough times it was good enough that it encouraged me to carry on that even the time is where it completely flocked at least got the attention of the kids and the fact that i was willing to have a go at that although they might have thought i was a rubbish rapper they kind of respected the fact that i was i was going to do that so i think being open to just trying to do that going outside of your comfort zone is a really powerful thing as a teacher or facilitator because that's what you're trying to encourage your students to do as well so i could go on there's so many ways that you can use it i think so wait a minute sorry you're you're going into a class of kids you don't know and you're like i'll just rap i'll just freestyle rap that that was that that's brave yeah i mean supply teaching can feel like quite a brave thing just moving 14-year-olds that you don't know and try and teach them in the first place so in a sense there's kind of nothing nothing to nothing to do what may do you think to do that like you know what as you say you're not like when i think rapper i'm not necessarily picturing you and maybe we shouldn't stereotype but what what you know how did you come to start with rap well i mean i've always been a fan when i was young myself um i never really did it much because i wasn't growing up in a place at a time where it was where where it was a dumb thing but i you know when i was on my own in my bedroom i practice and and but it was something i discovered through working with young people through teaching and developed it and and and sort of enjoyed it and i think the and i mean freestyle itself is is as a particular form of rap of which is going off the cuff and and just kind of making up as you go along is that is a real it is a difficult thing to do and to sort of take the leap into that um once you do that though and you overcome that it's it's one of the most and feeling that you can freestyle in this situation it's one of the most incredibly empowering feelings that there is and it's a kind of skill to have and i think that that particular aspect of of rap is is something that is so powerful therapeutically and educationally of of getting people that supposed to overcome that limitation because most of the time if you start freestyling you kind of people say one or two lines and then we'll kind of become self-conscious and shut down whereas if you can overcome that and and top rappers talk about kind of going into a zone where they're sort of talking and using language and putting ideas together but almost in a in a kind of pre-conscious way and so it's a way for ideas to come out and and a kind of form of expression which isn't inhibited by the natural things that stop people talking about stuff and i mean that that's where i think that you know the therapeutic potential of that is is huge obviously that has to be managed in the right way like anything but um yeah that certainly once once you feel confident to be able to do that you think well in any room i can go into if everything else goes wrong i'll just start trying to freestyle i love that so much and presumably there's something about i would imagine there's something about the fact that with the freestyle rap you say it and it's gone that's quite freeing rather than you know the project you worked on here you crafted those lyrics over a long time but freestyle it's it's it's a moment in time right yeah and and there's and there's there's strengths and and things that both they're two separate crafts and you know both require in practice but but they sort of activate different parts of the brain and and they have yeah letting something go and setting it free and and something being spontaneous that i mean that's that's such a kind of that that creates such a powerful energy and i think when you know when you see any performer doing something which is improvised which you know is never going to happen again and is in that moment there's a connection to that as a audience or other people participating which just makes it such a powerful energy yeah absolutely it's like him i have a friend uh rachel paris who is i mean she she is a fairly well-known comedian but when you go and watch her well-known stuff you're seeing something that's been crafted over a really long time but her and her husband actually marcus big stops both do improv as well and i love i love everything they do but i particularly love going and watching the improv because it's exactly that thing you say you're watching with such awe that this is happening and you're watching it evolve and you know it's never going to happen quite that way again i think it's amazing it's uh yeah it's an incredible thing to do so if um people want to you know i think you will inspire people to think about having a you know wanting to explore rappers and media maybe explore it with the kids they're supporting as well how do you start like how do you go about kind of writing a rap and and getting going how do you get into it how do you start writing yeah well i mean for me that the rhymes are the the sort of basic unit of it of thinking of words that that rhyme a lot a lot of the time i remember being at school and and being told you know when you write a poem and the english teacher said no it doesn't have to rhyme and then it and almost there's this idea that actually rhyming is difficult whereas actually rhyme is is such a basic unit of language and it's something that people can think of all the time and everyone can do it and that provides the the structure really to what what what rap is i mean there's more to obviously in terms of the kind of beat and the rhythm that and not all rap music does rhyme but you know fundamentally i think i think that's that's the kind of key unit so um i i would just think you know encourage people to listen to rap songs and then to try to write their own trying to make it rhyme and and sort of have a go at it or just kind of freestyle in in your own space in your own head um something i finally fought them on the bus i would i would look out and see things and try to think of words that might rhyme with that and you know great thing in london there's language everywhere in classrooms there's words on all of the walls so you can see things and and try to make a rhyme i think you know really it's about kind of engaging with the culture and taking an interest in it and being curious and learning more about it i wouldn't it would be very hard for somebody to who's got no prior interest or experience to sit down and write a full rap themselves but actually the more that you learn about it the more accessible it's going to become and and and probably the best thing would be to ask the young people that they work with or know about it and actually learn from them because um they're they're the kind of experts and they're the ones that will be able to suggest something and and would have ideas and and that that reversal of status i think is such a powerful thing to have in any kind of professional setting as well absolutely and i think what you said before about kind of having a bit of a vulnerability and um being open to being a learner amongst the the young people that you're working with um is really powerful as well do you rap Emma did you did were you involved in the actual rap element or no that would have been very bad um so no i i have a massive interest in poetry and spoken word and storytelling um so that's you know that has huge associations you know with rap there's a lot of that well rap of course you know the p is the poetry um but that's not absolutely not why i was asked to um to sort of put this project together project manage um but for me the joy is always when working with young people is seeing them really inspired and engaged um so even though you know rap isn't something that i listen to a bit of old school hip hop yeah rap and drill is something i listen to but um i did find myself like googling um you know youtubeing for a few videos because actually one session we had when the young people were researching video techniques so they were all you know we had a whole table of young people at laptops all um i think you know it was particularly enjoyable in some ways because they just got to watch for our videos they wanted to because we were looking for a particular what ideas did they think what techniques worked would be good for for our video um and that's some really really interesting um little snippets of vids that i saw that they were looking at and so i had you know i have um listened been listening to a bit more since then but but no that my interest is um really comes from any type of creative project um with young people so my project we've done a few different creative projects all with mental health um education awareness at its heart with unspoken word projects drama mural making um fashion design um you know i know nothing about fashion design either but i love the fact that young people got really creative and sort of putting stuff they were learning around emotions into the sort of things they were designing so for me that's the joy yeah it's my job but my real joy is um creative projects of any type and i really believe that any art form um can be a mental health awareness project you've got to think about it carefully you've got to plan it carefully you've got to choose the right artists for sure um but when you've got the right people on board any art forming young people might be interested in can certainly be a really good basis for a really effective um mental health emotions learning in whichever way you want it to be and like yeah i really passionately um believe that um yeah and what's next demo ah well in terms of this um myself and joel and um our colleague james who manages the soapbox youth centre we are having um well for this term we set up quite regular meetings because we all really want to look at new projects that we can do sort of based on success of this so joel's already talked about this a little bit um so looking at the possibility of more videos and you know at soapbox i've got all sorts of other really interesting creative ideas and things they're planning that we could um we can hopefully utilize in different ways um you know of course funding is always something you have to look at but we're really lucky that we've got a real interest in it passion for it and also um a lot of great skills and resources available in our bar and i'm really aware that not everyone has those resources easily accessible to them um i'm you know i've got a music industry friend whose artists in lockdown have been creating and releasing singles on their home equipment which is probably in a lot of cases not much more impressive than our sort of laptops we've all got at home so these days actually there is really good equipment available to pretty much everyone um so you don't necessarily need the resources we have available to us in in islington um but yeah certainly we're we're collectively um looking at ways of doing you know piggybacking on the success of stress on the brain and hopefully producing more resources inevitably primarily for the young people of islington this is where we work but again that's just on the brain ones that can hopefully then be used by people anywhere you know really keen to put stuff out for public use i'm not just restricted to it to our own um you know our own sort of community here here in islington um and i would say as well that you know public health for my project camps, commissions, New River College everyone's been really proud of the fact that it's not just local people who've been interested in stress on the brain you know i'm really like chuffed to know that young people perhaps in north humbrew or cormor or scotland wales will be using um finding stress on the brain useful so um so so yeah so yeah we're really sort of hopefully will have me more resources really great resources to put out for um wide use over the next year or so fantastic and i always like to to close with a kind of thought to to leave people with them maybe you'd each like to to close with something but essentially anyone who might have been kind of listening in what what would you like them to to kind of think about or reflect on as we we kind of place maybe if you want to start Emma just thought to leave people with oh um so i might revert here i've actually got a couple of quotes from two of the young people um involved who were two of the rappers on on our video so maybe um this their their comments um just acts as inspiration if you need any more for how effective um using rap and hip education can be um so one of them said um that trauma i'm reading these absolutely verbatim trauma messes with the brain don't get help and don't be ashamed and another quote we've got from one of one of the other young men is don't let trauma beat you and chase your dreams and so just bearing in mind what Joel said about their feelings towards beginning and these are quotes we asked them for during lockdown um so these are quotes they came out which just shows actually how influential um this this making this video um so using rap first or quite complex um information um has has you know how effective that can be with um with young people um you know who are students that are people of oh you know fabulous and any closing thoughts from you Joel i think yeah just just going back to the the question you initially proposed about can rap be ending the stigma of mental health um i i would encourage everyone to listen more closely to rap music to try to go past the stigmas that people have of rap music there is problematic content within it there's all sorts of things around masculinity and aggression but if you listen carefully you'll find the moments of vulnerability and openness and integrity and authenticity there that makes it the genuine voice of young people and that's why i think it's so powerful important to listen to and explore how it could be a vehicle for connecting with those young people and um all of those things that may be problematic can be a kind of way to access those and a starting point for more conversations