“Young people are carrying fear”: Emerald in conversation with Big Zuu and Kerry O’Brien

In the decade and a half since the Conservative-Liberal Democrat coalition government set foot into office in 2010, beginning a long, tough programme of austerity, over 1,000 youth clubs have shut down in the UK. They’ve been one of the hardest hit sectors by budget cuts, with real-terms government spending being slashed by 70% between 2011 and 2019, and a recent Guardian report finding that the current Labour government is spending even less on youth funding than their predecessors.

And its impact has been huge. Over the past 15 years, serious youth violence has increased – particularly in densely populated, more deprived urban areas – with many experts directly attributing the changes to cuts in youth funding. But what’s often forgotten is their importance as cultural and arts hubs – spaces where young people have been able to go, and learn how to create art and music while also take part in sport activities. Many of grime and drill’s day one originators and innovators cut their teeth in youth clubs, giving them spaces to explore and create, and channel their experiences into lyrics and beats.

Their dwindling numbers and impact is something that Don’t Stop Your Future (DSYF) – a campaign against serious youth violence headed up by actor Idris Elba – has aimed to challenge this summer. The group has partnered with the Young Urban Arts Foundation (YUAF) and rapper Big Zuu’s mineral water brand DRIP to hit stops across London and deliver workshops in music production, DJing and sport, as well as perform live performances for the various boroughs’ young people – in essence, it’s a youth club on wheels.

Since the beginning of July, the bus has travelled to the London Youth Games at Stratford’s Olympic Park in east London, Wireless Festival in north London, the Morningside Community Centre in Hackney, the Happy Hub in Westminster, and Lewisham’s Evelyn Estate in southeast London. It makes its final stop on August 31 in west London’s Kensington and Chelsea at Kids On The Green – a charity founded in the aftermath of the Grenfell tragedy to give space for young people in the area to express themselves.

At the Westminster event, DJ, broadcaster and YUAF artist ambassador Emerald sat down with Big Zuu and YUAF’s founder Kerry O’Brien (aka jungle MC Indigo Reign), to chat about how the project has already affected people, the opportunities artists have when presented with a platform, and the tough environment for young people in London right now.

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Emerald: We are currently sat inside the mobile tour bus for the Don’t Stop Your Future, YUAF and DRIP water youth project. It’s been a beautiful day, and it’s been a party – we’ve all had jerk chicken, refuelled and I’m joined right now by the wonderful Kerry and Big Zuu. Thank you so much for joining me. I want to ask you today about your experiences with youth clubs, youth culture, funding at the moment and this project. Starting by, I want to know about your early experiences when it comes to youth clubs or creative spaces like this growing up, what role did they play in your development? 

Big Zuu: For me they’re incredibly important. Right now, we’re in The Avenues. I came here as a young man. I grew up on Fernhead Road. So this place gave me a place to look at myself doing different things in life. Whether it was making music, or doing a bit of judo. I was also in a rugby club a lot growing up. This is where I did some of my first ever recordings. So, if it wasn’t for youth clubs, I might not be the person I am today. 

E: You wouldn’t be the judo master that you are today. 

BZ: Ok I’m not great at judo, but I can do a Seoi Nage.

E: This is the second time you’ve mentioned judo today, so you obviously must be really good at judo. 

BZ: That’s what we did at The Avenues. I would get dashed on the floor really hard and not come back. So let’s not talk about it.

E: Kerry, looking back on your teenage years, what impact do you think an initiative like the Don’t Stop Your Future Youth tour – like this experience we’re having today and throughout the last weeks – would have had on you? 

K: Well, the reason I designed and built this bus was because when I was growing up, there were youth clubs around, but I was a really traumatised kid. I got groomed into a gang. Had I been in a youth club, I probably wouldn’t have got groomed and involved in crime. But I’ve been an MC since I was 15, so my youth club was the jungle scene, and I had mentors and people in the industry that acted like youth workers and support workers. So it wasn’t necessarily a youth club, but it was a safe space that had trusted adults.

I didn’t really do much in youth clubs. I found them boring. I was just too much of a rebel. But the reason that YUAF exists is because this bus is a safe space and it is a youth club. I know the impact it has, because when we go into areas where there’s no youth clubs or areas there’s no activities for young people, when we rock up we know the difference it makes. Whether it’s wellbeing or keeping them safe from being groomed, we don’t even know, [but] we know we’re saving lives doing this. 

E: What impact would this initiative have had on you growing up as a teenager? 

K: Had there been a bus or initiative like this, I don’t think I would have got picked up by who I got picked up by. I’d probably not be where I am today.

E: Well I think where you’re at today is fabulous! Zuu, what motivated you to be part of this project? 

BZ: I have a youth background – I studied youth work in university. I worked in many youth clubs when I was young, but then I got wrapped up in my career. So I’ve always been lucky enough to get involved with people like YUAF. Me and Kerry have worked together for a long time, we’ve done stuff for years, I’m an ambassador of the charity. And with Don’t Stop Your Future, big up Idris, being someone that’s so vocal about youth clubs and youth culture. I feel like we naturally gravitate towards what they’re doing, and being a co-founder of DRIP, this is the kind of initiative that we want to sponsor and get behind. 

K: In 2020, Zuu got four of our young artists and did a remix of one of his tracks. I still watch the video and hear the song, and I well up. It changed their lives. It’s artists like him that are good role models for others, to say: ​“Actually, if you’ve got a platform, do a little bit of this.”

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E: And it’s also handy because it’s been like 32 degrees all week, so it’s nice having a water sponsor – we’re all hydrated; everyone’s safe and sound. Kerry, this bus is visiting areas where youth services have been significantly reduced, and funding has been cut. But the figures are actually shocking. When I was doing my research, I was shocked – it’s like 90% in some areas. What do you think this is going to bring to these communities?

K: Just letting young people know that we actually care about them. What young people have told us is that when you take a youth club from a community, it’s a message to say: ​“We don’t care about you.” That’s how they receive it. So when you take the bus to a stage, we’re literally care on wheels. We’re saying: ​“Hey, we care about you.” And all young people need to feel cared for, but especially when you’re growing up, when your brain, your spirit, your heart and all your perceptions are developing. We all know as adults that if you go through a traumatic childhood, it stays with you for all your life, and you’ve got to go through therapy and do all sorts of stuff. So, we care. And that’s what this bus and these initiatives are about. We can’t change everything, but the ripple effect of changing one life – it works. Through care on wheels. 

E: Care on wheels is great. And can you tell me about some highlights that you’ve witnessed during the tour? You already mentioned those four young people that Zuu remixed a track with. Anything else like that stood out? 

K: Yeah, there have been moments. At Wireless Festival there was a young man, he was 19 years old and he had SEN (special educational needs), and he came up to the bus and said all his friends had left him, and he wanted to die. He did some DJing, studio – he stayed with us the entire day and he said he felt like he had a reason to live again. Like that is the impact of it. Another incident happened on Tuesday, we were podcasting upstairs – and I was told the story third hand by one of our team – but a young boy who was six years old came in with his dad. He was highly autistic and ADHD, and really struggled to communicate with his parents. They had this conversation with one of our facilitators, and the dad was like: ​“I had no idea he was able to open up like that.” And now you can take that back home and the parent is able to communicate with that young person in a different way. Tiny little moments like this are absolutely life changing, and that’s a couple just from this tour.

E: I wish we had time to hear all the stories, but I don’t think I can hold it together. Over 1,000 youth centres have closed since 2010, which is nuts. What do you think has been lost as a result?

BZ: Well, opportunities for young people to get into different careers. It’s about access to understanding that you can get into different things. When we see young people commit crime or go down the wrong road, it’s very easy to blame their parents, very easy to blame what’s going on around them, but we’re never allowed to look at what society hasn’t provided for them. And I think sometimes, if you look at people who come from disadvantaged backgrounds, the aspirations and the level of role model they have is different compared to if you come from a middle class background or upper class background. When these youth clubs and facilities that help young people grow end up closing, you’re naturally going to see a reduction in what they do. So it’s very important that we have places like this, to give young people aspirations to be more than just whatever they’re proscribed to. 

K: What we see with young people every day is a lot of anxiety, because they haven’t got a safe space. If you take it back to the caveman times, children are brought up in community and that’s what youth centres brought. Young people are feeling lost – they have anxiety, they’re now using their phones instead of going to youth clubs, and their confidence, their ability to communicate with others [is affected] because they’re not in these safe spaces. They’re using each others as mentors, when they actually need older people to advise them. Just to echo what Zuu said about having access to opportunities; there are opportunities out there for young people, but the youth clubs show them where those opportunities are. It’s the same with YUAF – we’ve got a whole service that get young people into opportunities.

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E: From your own lived experience in London, how do you think that this city has changed for young people today? You’ve touched on how phones have come into it, but what are some of the challenges and risks that they face now that weren’t as present when you were growing up? 

K: They were present when I was growing up, but they weren’t so obvious. We see a lot of fear, you know, these kids are so scared. We found out that most young people now – unless they’ve got a community – carry a knife. We’re talking all ethnicities, all ages. We’ve got nine-year-olds in Dagenham, [and] we’re having to say: ​“Can you leave your knife outside please?” They’re carrying that fear, and most of them do not want to carry that, but they have to because they know everyone else is. That’s one of the things that I’m seeing as a result of not having safe spaces. I could go on.

E: No, but that’s important to highlight. It’s definitely talked about, yet also not talked about enough.

K: We ran workshops today, teaching kids how to save their friends’ lives if they get stabbed. What does the world come to? We do that because we want to save lives, but this is not what kids should be learning. Some of the kids here are getting groomed at 10, 11, and you’ve got 13-year-olds that are actually grooming nine-year-olds now. This is what we see. You know what? This bus is out one day a week at the moment because of funding. We haven’t got enough money to get the bus out. We know that if this bus is out every day, we’re saving lives. 

I set up in 2009, just before the real cuts came. In 2015, when they slashed youth funding from all the boroughs, we lobbied and said: ​“Listen, kids’ lives are at risk here.” And when that funding went, we became a struggling charity. I know this bus is all shiny, but we are struggling. We’re grassroots, but we are struggling. We will be in a good place when this bus is out five days a week, daytime through until evening, keeping young people safe and engaging with youth workers, engaging with these trusted adults. We’ve got the solution.

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E: Zuu, what are some of the challenges and risks that kids are facing that you had to face growing up? What’s changed? 

BZ: Obviously social media is a big, big difference in terms of how they all connect outside of school. I think a big change is obviously youth hubs not being there. When I was young, when I would come home from school or finish college, that was just a normal thing. When we’re finished school, finished college, where we are now? That’s not a normal thing no more. Youth don’t know about that. 

K: And that puts pressure on parents as well. The parents of our time knew we had the youth club to go to, so now there’s even more pressure – mostly on those that can’t afford it. They’re at work, so then the kids are alone and they’re thinking: ​“Okay let me go and do something.” That’s when they start ​“causing trouble” because they’re just bored.

E: Do you think that there’s a disconnect between policymakers and the realities faced by young people in these communities?

K: The difference is that policy makers and corporate charities don’t understand grassroots organisations or communities – they think they know what’s best, and they don’t listen. Honestly, the only thing that works is listening to the people you’re trying to help. That includes focus groups, speaking to the community leaders and going into these communities – you’re not going to make change if you’re not listening to the people you’re trying to help.

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E: Zuu, what message would you share with young people who feel like they are overlooked or unsupported in the current system?

BZ: One, know that there are people like the YUAF and Don’t Stop Your Future, who are trying to dedicate their time to help you. And two, you have to find your role models and people that you aspire to – look at their journey and what made them great. Also, use social media as a tool to promote yourself to become great, whether it’s with dance, music, cooking or whatever you love. 

E: Let’s talk about change, impact and. In your view, what would meaningful investment in youth services actually look like? 

K: Looking at what works and fully investing in those things, because there’s projects that are doing great work. I’m not saying everything should be funded because there’s impact that needs to be measured, but I would say invest fully in the projects that work and have evidence of working.

E: And finally, for readers who want to support a project like this, what practical actions can they actually take? 

BZ: Well, I’d always say raising awareness. Sharing things on social media, with your people, word of mouth, and obviously donating money always helps. But if you don’t have money right now, using social media to raise awareness is always helpful, because if one person shares it, that’s great. If 10 people share it, that’s amazing. It’s sick for me to come back to places like The Avenues today and see so many people from the community that I’ve known growing up here, coming out and supporting something like this, because then you know it’s going to have that ripple effect. Everyone’s putting it in social media, you’ve got people like Ms Banks pulling up, Bashy as well, coming up and showing love to everything that’s going on down here. This is my hood where I grew up and I’m seeing people from across the music scene come and support it, so that’s only going to get it heard across the city, and hopefully across the country.

To support Don’t Stop Your Future and the Young Urban Arts Foundation, donate via their official websites.

Follow Emerald, Big Zuu and Kerry O’Brien on Instagram.

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