A Great Year Continues & Forthcoming Launch in September 2016 !!!! Brand New Promotional Video & Poetry Chapbook

Watch this space, as I will be launching a  new poetry music video, also print poetry chapbook in September 2016 at the Phoenix Digital Media Centre Leicester !!  This marks the beginning of a whole exciting chapter, on the back of fantastic year so far, that has seen also my new play VEX with themes of corruption in NGO's, Cultural Appropriation and Ethnic Cleaning, performed at Brighton Theatre, to a packed and thrilled audience as part of a production  of 12 Angry Women Writers in April 2016.

Earlier, this year as well as embarking on the second part of of the 2 Funky Project Live as Music Director. Whereby I was mentoring and preparing young talented Urban music artists for a career, in the Music Industry. In particular arranging their original songs and music for performance with a live band of professional sessional musicians, for an important Music Industry Showcase.  Part One of 2 Funky Arts Project Live  having successfully taken place in 2015. Thereby bringing music very much to the forefront of my work once again - a welcome return!. This is evidenced by me performing regularly across the country, as a guest singer  with the very popular  6 piece Funk Soul Collective Band . I have also been writing new songs for personal acoustic music project, audio recording and live performances for next year.

Finally, buzzing having recently been commissioned by the Artistic Director Amanda Leandro of  Cosmopolitan Festival, to write a new song to perform live at the Cosmopolitan Festival with a music ensemble, that includes Harp. Horns and World Percussion.  I would describe the new piece, as a song for people in troubling times, after the negative fall out of the Brexit Vote in the UK

  

Divas Deaths & Show Business 80% Business 20% Show..?.

In year or so , that has seen Vesta Williams, Amy Winehouse and most recently Whitney Houston -unwind from this mortal coil . In Whitney Houston's case in particular I have just commented , publicly to highlight and acknowledge the family's turmoil and the struggles that Divas can face in the music industry hidden from public view -i.e. when not on show. This was done via a phone link on a local BBC radio programme. It therefore , seemed timely to mark , to observe - some ordinary peoples , the media and the music businesses' responses to these sad events. On the one hand it seems to me, there is the heightened personal grief , of family and friends experienced in the harsh glare etc of the world's media. On the other, the public's natural reaction, of wanting to express their own responses , to these seemingly untimely deaths, 'amplified' via the internet and media. Leading inevitably to a rise in demand for an artists music . From which , in an unseemly manner, the music industry, rather too brusquely, seeks to make its profit.

Whilst the artist's families numbed shocked and grief stricken, contend with the difficult task of the care and funerals of their loved ones. The music industry machine grinds on regardless, to capture the money . Whereas, a natural (it seems to me ! ) dignified period of respectful privacy and compassionate contemplation. Would result in time, in a considered reflection of the artist and their gift to the world , is not even considered, by these music industry companies. It would appear Divas in a sense, are the 'property of the company' at all times, even more so in death. So business as usual...