Music video pays tribute to knife crime victims
THE MESSAGE IS: ‘WE’VE ALREADY SEEN TOO MUCH LOSS OF LIFE’
A MUSIC video highlighting the tragic implications of knife crime has had a “positive response” – as the team behind it warned “we’ve already seen too much loss of life”.
Filmed in St Ann’s and Top Valley, Street Struggles includes footage of two Nottingham mums whose sons were stabbed to death.
The video includes bereaved parents holding pictures of their children, with the aim of encouraging youths to “put down your knive”’.
Rapper Eli’sha Lloyd, who came up with the lyric and composed the beat, said the track – which he worked on with the Chayah Development Project – had already had an impact.
Mr Lloyd, 34, who moved to the area from London, said: “We have had a positive response so far. The video got released about a week ago or so.
“It has had comments. I’ve had nothing but a positive response from the run-up all the way to the release of the video.
“A lot of people have been saying it’s encouraging and it’s a positive message, and there needs to be more messages that can help people and give them some sense of hope.”
Mr Lloyd added: “I know personally people from London I have lost through knife crime. It touched home.
“I was compelled to do it. It’s coming from a place of pain, even in my own life as well.”
Justin Weedon, 37, who turned his life around having been involved in crime, has also been involved with the track.
Mr Weedon – who is now a youth mentor, outreach worker and project coordinator – said: “We’ve had the idea at the project. We wanted to make a track to get the message out to the kids.
“This day and age, it’s the 21st century – the way that messages are getting through to kids is through music.
“The message within the music is the message of: ‘no more, put down your knives – stop it because this is what’s happening and this is the consequence’.
“That’s why we had the mothers that have lost their sons.
“If people aren’t listening and understanding the lyrics then they can actually see what’s going on in the video, they can see mothers stood there hurting, holding their dead son’s picture.
“We wanted to deliver a message going into 2021 for the kids – as I put it on my Facebook: ‘Fresh start, new beginnings – we’ve already seen too much loss of life in the year 2020’.”
The music video is available to watch in full on Youtube.
Mr Weedon, of the Bestwood Estate, also paid tribute to his friend Keany Kristal Kissingou-mabiala, a 20-yearold man who died from injuries sustained in an incident in Milton Street, near the Victoria Centre, on October 12 last year.
Mr Kissingou-mabiala was a musician and described as “extremely popular”.
Speaking of his friend, Mr Weedon said: “I know Keany from off the estate.
“When you live on a council estate you know people, if I were to go down to a certain spot I’d see him and I’d see the boys and we’d all sit there and have 10 minutes, have a chat.
“He was a good friend of mine. [I was] extremely devastated, gutted, heartbroken.
“I spoke to him probably a week before when I was in Skeggy. That’s the last time I spoke to him before he passed.
“He was extremely popular, he was the life and soul of parties, always had a smile on his face.
“He had a budding career ahead of him, he was just about to release his track that he’d done. “He was going to be somebody – he was about to
make it.”
■ A man and a youth have both pleaded not guilty to the murder of Mr Kissingou-mabiala. A trial date has been set for May 4, with an estimated length of two to three weeks.
I was compelled to do it. It’s coming from a place of pain, even in my own life
Eli’sha Lloyd