Music

Scroll down for our soundcloud and visit our youtube for music videos

Music is where it all started. Co-founder, Hazel Chandler MBE, is a filmmaker and that’s what led her to Sierra Leone but it was the other co-founder, Michael Chandler, who got involved in the music and realised how few opportunities there were for musicians. Instruments had been destroyed in the war and there was only one, expensive, recording studio. It was Michael who took on the whole process of registering a charity and drawing up constitutions and policies. Music is still at the centre of what WAYout does. Street youth and those in gangs are drawn in by the music. They can soak in the atmosphere and just watch what is going on before they register to do a beat. They learn without realising they are learning and become part of a family of similar youth.

There is a lot of musical talent on the streets of Freetown where nearly 70% of youth are unemployed. Also in the prison where over 1000 inmates occupy a building meant for 300. We work with the most marginalised youth and gangs to record their music free, because music gives a voice, it gives a sense of achievement and builds confidence, it requires co-operation and produces something to show the family and community who see you as useless, it gives purpose and saves lives, a recording enables them to promote themselves and move forward.  Music heals! So far we have recorded over 3,500 tracks and 15 albums.

It is music that attracted one of our oldest supporters, The Joe Strummer Fund (originally Strummerville). Thanks to the them WAYout has four music studios and a mobile studio. Studio One is at the heart of everything in Freetwon and it is where we create new beats for both new musicians and established WAYout musicians like Black Street and Mash P.  Studio two is a smaller studio where young people who hope to be producers, learn how to use logic and practice their skills. We have a small studio in the male prison and now a studio in Kono which was at the heart of the conflict. There is a mobile studio which goes out into hard to reach corners of Freetown and in to the provinces where there is no access to studios.  During lock down WAYout did several live streams with JSF.

JSF also brought Frank Turner over to Freetown in March 2017 and 2018 and he visited four communities in desperate need of support where WAYout now offers training and facilities. Frank in Freetown. Frank also recorded tracks in the studio with Mash P and Black Street Family and this track of Meekys. Frank became everyone’s hero.

Watch film here – WAYout music 

Black Street Family is a large, and once feared, street gang comprising many musicians. We have recorded three albums for them and now they say people come and sit with them and even respect their talent. This has had the knock on effect of turning Black Street members away from violence and crime. “We have a different reputation now and we have to live up to that.