50 Cent's music turned the area into Gunman central #bedroomShutMusicUp

I said I don’t like Glamour

Come to your manor

tinted banger

Intention to hook you like a hanger

Intention to make your life much duller

— Rage, Slewdem Mafia

Let me give you the scene. The time is 2:21 AM ((I have no respect for time! Well until the morning breaks and I wonder why! 😩😅). The house is still, the kitchen table my launchpad for imagination. But instead of creating, I got caught up in the cycle of an Instagram scroll, the thumb folding to temptation for no reason. The mist of distraction had me in a headlock for way too long.

But then the mist lifted—the headlock broken—as a story popped up that made me pause. A former drill rapper turned naturalist—someone who now uses his platform to share his adventures with animals, like the ones you’d see on a David Attenborough special set in the Serengeti. He preached wildlife conservation and the importance of a green planet.

But it’s all came crashing down. His past caught up with him. He’s now been charged with a murder dating back to 2020.

Though it got me questioning:

Was he a bad person trying to do good?

Or a good person who did bad?

Or is it, as they say, when you know better, you do better?

Who knows?

That late-night scroll brought me back to a conversation I had with Rage. It was part of an oral history I recorded for our exhibition, to better understand Waltham Forest in the early 2000s—and it offered deeper insight into what might have been going on in the mind of that former drill rapper.

Rage told me though he was involved in various serious street activities during the early 2000’s he had also been introduced to books on people like Marcus Garvey, Malcolm X and real knowledge of self type books. He said he felt conflicted. His consciousness was growing, and he wanted to tell his friends to aim higher, to live better. But wondering who’d actually listen, he kept that part of himself internal and allowed himself to be consumed back to the streets. An Outward portrayal of the madness. 

Reflecting on it now, it’s striking how many people we’ve interviewed through this project who’ve said that early exposure to figures like Marcus Garvey shaped their paths. That kind of knowledge gave them direction. Identity. For some, it was enough to keep them away from the roads and drive them toward greatness.

I know for me, seeing the Kebra Negast and recognising myself in its imagery helped clear my vision—helped me see my worth.

Maybe that’s why the elders always say:

“You can’t know where you’re going if you don’t know where you’re coming from.”

In our exhibition, you might notice the phrase In the Spirit of Griots written in italics.In West African societies, griots were the keepers of memory—oral historians, poets, and musicians. They passed down the stories of people and places through rhythm and voice. Their spirit lives on in rap, in spoken word, in the music of Rage and so many others.

During our chat, Rage said something that stuck with me:“I’m not sure if it’s the music I love, or more the process of putting words together.”He told me that outside of ‘Rage’, another one of his aliases was “The Author.”

And to me, that’s the spirit of the griot—someone who, despite the chaos, holds onto the responsibility of documenting, interpreting, and sharing the stories of the people.

If this has resonated with you in any way, make sure to sign up or RSVP through our website.There’s more to come—and you won’t want to miss it.