Birmingham's inner-city youth say 'It's Our Time' as musical project is set to return

Nov 30 2009 by Paul Suart, Birmingham Mail

A MUSICAL project to highlight the problems faced by youngsters on inner-city estates in Birmingham and Manchester is set to return next year.

Earlier this year urban acts, including Yonah Higgins from Birmingham’s successful girl group Cleopatra, joined forces with young people from both cities to write and record powerful songs for a CD.

Many of the tracks on the album, which attracted rave reviews from music industry officials, carry poignant messages about serious issues including knife and gun crime, peer pressure, drugs and gang culture.

It was produced as part of the ‘Our Time’ cohesion project which was thought to be the first of its kind to unite youngsters living in poor areas of Birmingham and Manchester through musical tuition and performance.

Darryl James, from Greenspring Training, the community group which co-ordinated the Birmingham leg of the project, said plans were underway to make the scheme better next year.

He said: “The vision for this project is to bring together community groups and backgrounds to show a unified front against the problems that face our young people living in major cities. Part one was a huge success and exceeded expectations. Part two will be even bigger.

“This time, groups from London and another yet -to-be-confirmed city will participate.”

Trilla, KMD, Lady Livewire, Mystic and Lucid Solutions were among the artists who contributed to the CD which features strongly-titled tracks such as In Too Deep, How Many Of Us Have To Die? and We’ll Get Somewhere.

Mr James, one half of Birmingham’s up-and-coming production duo Soundmasters, is appealing for artists, producers and mentors to help with Our Time part 2.