Press Coverage
Check out some of our latest press coverage
"Writer, performer, and facilitator Kenny Baraka looks back on our recent project with Young Makers’ Agency in Downham, Lewisham. Throughout this year-long project, Funded by Phoenix Housing, Kenny helped develop a group of aspiring lyricists and MCs..."
Young. Gifted. Black. I remember as a youth hearing others speak of me as an intellectual but completely rough around the edges. The truth was, I was a high risk student by all measures – I grew up in an impoverished one-parent household in a rough inner city neighborhood where some temptations swallowed other boys like me. I survived, but by all measures I probably shouldn’t be where I am today – excelling as a successful father, husband, and educator. How did I do it?….
Hip Hop in Music Education
with Kenny Baraka
In the fifth episode of Youth Music’s Podcast we talk to staff from Essex Music Service, the lead partner in the Essex Music Education Hub, about establishing and embedding hip hop and rap tuition across the music service.
We discuss how this came about, how it's being delivered, what we can learn from youth work and community music approaches and what the experience for the schools and young people has been so far. The wide-ranging conversation highlights the role of hip hop in reaching and inspiring young people, its impact on forming personal identities and its effectiveness in supporting language development and expression. We also explore the roots of the culture, its evolution into modern forms of the genre and touch on some of the recent media controversy surrounding drill music.
QA Education – the magazine for headteachers
Colchester Gazette
Ark John Keats Academy - SLAM POET VISITS ARK JOHN KEATS
Shake The Dust - Stirred, Shaken and Swept Away at South East Regional Finals
Getreading - Torch Relay is celebrated in art
The Olympic flame may have gone out, but Reading’s Torch Relay celebrations have left a lasting legacy.
Birmingham Live - Theatre: Kenny Baraka opens graphic novel in theatre as Rep goes on tour
BIRMINGHAM Repertory Theatre has taken its first show out on the road – and is making the most of new opportunities.
With the traditional theatre closed, the Rep is looking for new venues and has chosen the industrial A E Harris Building in Hockley for its production.
And this background is the ideal space for The Rememberers which aims to combine hip-hop and a graphic novel genre.
Writer and performer Kenny Baraka says the site is integral to the piece.
“It is set in a post-Apocalyptic time and the actual shows takes place in the base camp of the narrator,” he says. “It needs a very specific venue where everything is a part of that world. So everything is very makeshift. It has a favela feel. Much of the staging is remade, recycled and ripped – things like used bus seats.”
BBC Midlands
With four weeks of a national tour spent @ The Birmingham Rep', BBC Midlands' short piece on The Rememberers; our hip hop, sci-fi, graphic novel.
Spotify - Hear “Sing” by Omar featuring Kenny Baraka
“‘Kenny was a real highlight of our Arts Enrichment week; highly engaging and energetic, he ensured all students participated and gave them the encouragement and confidence to perform their own raps in front of the whole year group – it was quite impressive! Student feedback was overwhelmingly positive and we’re looking forward to welcoming him back to Anglo European again this year.”