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Artist News Releases
Scroobius Pip, Kindness and more to work on British Red Cross refugee album
By Andy Malt | Published on Tuesday 16 June 2015
The British Red Cross has announced the release of a new album which will feature songs written by musicians including Scroobius Pip, Kindness and Sierra Leone All Stars based on the true stories of refugees from around the world.
Each musician will work directly with a refugee who has fled their own country to come to the UK, learning about what led them to make the decision to travel here before setting their story to music.
The album will be produced by Ethan Johns, who says: “This is a very special opportunity to create an album with a narrative that helps more people understand the realities of being a refugee and the journeys people go through. Music is one of the oldest forms of storytelling, and these are important stories to be told”.
Kindness’s Adam Bainbridge, who is working with Ayman Hirh, who fled Syria in 2012, says of the project: “I’ve seen with my own eyes that anyone’s life can be turned upside down overnight; that expressing an opinion can be enough to make life unliveable in the place you call home, and eventually force you to leave it. So when I was told about the project, I had to be involved. Getting to know Ayman has been fantastic and I’m looking forward to telling his story in the studio”.
Hirh added: “It has been great to meet Adam and share my story with him. I can’t wait to hear what he produces and I hope that my experience and the album will encourage people to think about the reasons people like me are forced to leave home before they judge us”.
Speaking about how the project came about, British Red Cross Refugee Support Manager Andy Hewett explains: “We wanted to find a way to shatter some of the stigma attached to refugees and asylum seekers and challenge people’s misconceptions. With the tragedies we see unfolding in the Mediterranean and around the world every day as people flee their homes, it is vital to try to illuminate this issue and bring home the reality of life as someone forced to leave everything they have behind”.
The album’s announcement coincides with Refugee Week. For more information on that, click here.
