January 18th, 2008I was a hopeless thug but rap has saved me
BRIGHT, earnest and articulate young rapper Michael Reepa radiates confidence and hope for the future.
The 21-year-old talks enthusiastically about the music, film and computer projects he has become involved with - including “anti-gang violence” messages filmed last week that will be soon be posted on YouTube.
It is hard to believe that Michael had only known a life of school expulsions, violence, crime and gangs until last year. With 10 stints in jail from the age of 15 behind him he turned his life around with the help of St Giles Trust, a Peckham charity that supports young offenders.
He was an urban offender growing up on the Bredinghurst Estate in East Dulwich, but he was tired of it. Michael said: “I was getting fed up with the life and my uncle said something that made me think.
“He said I was like one of those surfers, paddling and paddling when there are no waves and they aren’t getting anywhere. People are robbing and fighting in the street but they could get a job and have a normal life.
“People say: ‘No one will give me a job because I’m black’ or ‘I’m a criminal’, but there is always a way.”
Michael, whose parents separated when he was 10, described himself as an angry,frustrated and creative child who might have been helped by early intervention. He began to go off the rails when he was kicked out of school at 15.
A shadow crossing his face, Michael said: “From the age of 19 I decided I wanted to change my life,but I kept on being drawn back into situations, back into trouble.
“Once you’re in that cycle it’s so easy to say: ‘Anything I do doesn’t work’.”
He said although prison was boring, he wasn’t deterred from crime until he found a substitute and was accepted on to cooking, computer and film editing courses two years ago in Rochester jail.
He was helped by Junior Smart, who runs the SOS project with the St Giles Trust to help rehabilitate young offenders by getting them involved with creative projects.
When he came out of prison in November 2006 he attended a Princes Trust musical training course,then set up a recording studio in his mum’s flat in Dulwich and spent a month inviting his neighbours to lay down beats and rap with him.
He said: “I call them the ‘talented thugs’. There are so many people out there with so much talent, so much to offer, but they’re not given the chance to use it like I was. I would like to start a record label and give these people a chance.”
Working with Mr Smart he later recorded his track, Change, on an album with St Giles Trust called Rapping Up Europe. It was written and produced in a week by 17 multinational artists from the area, along with a video diary.
Michael is still working with three friends he brought to his bedroom studio and has set up Dead Man Records - a metaphor, he said, for his past life as a “dead to the world” prisoner.
Only three of the 50 young men Mr Smart has worked with have reoffended - whereas 70 per cent of inmates end up back in the clink.
Having served time in jail Mr Smart knows from experience that real rehabilitation is not about punishment but kindling hope by offering positive experiences and nurturing talent.
A calm and softly spoken 32-year-old, with a passion for pointing youngsters in the right direction, he said: “We talk about building more prisons, but those people have to come out eventually. And if we don’t do something to stop them re-offending, to break the cycle, then they’ll be back in and taking more people with them.”
Michael is currently doing work experience with Rolling Sounds music production studios in Deptford and filming positive anti-gang messages for Mr Smart to post on YouTube, in response to an epidemic of home videos which glamorise the criminal lifestyle.
