ABOUT

Lives & Lyrics is an Arts Council Funded project that has paired songwriter, poets, and rappers with marginalised or isolated communities to bring about the creation of brand new songs and music capturing the voices and stories of those involved.

Local artists have spent time engaging with and learning about the communities and were challenged to create new music from their interactions as a musical and artists response. The result is a moving collection of songs and a series of lives shows across the city; combined with a short film about the process.

The communities represented in the new music are the Roma community, the muslim community, elderly people in care homes, young offenders living in secure care and the mining community of south Derbyshire. Through new music these communities have come together to create a picture and a message that captures voices and feelings that may of being unheard by the wider community and each other.

The project is the idea and work of Derby based lyricist and musician Alex Blood, front man for the band The Diggers and a freelance creative practitioner whose musical work and involvement in the regional arts scene is recognised nationally. Alex’s previous community project combined photography and music, taking photos of Derby and creating new music inspired by the images. This project is a step deeper into that concept by taking the lives of the people of Derby and turning them into Lyrics.

The project comes to a close on November 30th at QUAD in Derby 430-6pm, with a free event featuring live performances of the songs and video screenings of “The Making of” showing how the songs came to be.