In Summer 2025, we embarked on an exciting project in Ramsgate with the aim of creating a space to help young people unlock their creativity, inspired by Township Jazz and reflecting on the question of what being free means today.
We partnered with Pie Factory Music and People Dem Collective, two organisations that work with young people in the local area; Pie Factory Music offers a safe space for young people in Thanet to access life-enhancing opportunities through youth work, music and arts projects, whilst People Dem Collective focuses on providing space, engagement, and inclusion for Black, Brown, and Diaspora communities.
Over the course of 3 days, 12 young people explored South African rhythms and melodies with us on the Marimba, learnt to make bold new sounds on the Tuba, and had a go at writing their own Spoken Word pieces inspired by themes of freedom.
Sound Composer Cameron Naylor captured the full process and produced the soundscape that you can hear below, representing the young people’s ‘beautiful ruckus of creation’ as they played, experimented, and tried things out for the very first time.
At NYJO, we believe in the unique power of jazz music to help young people amplify their voice and speak to the world around them. Township Jazz embodies this totally; challenging oppression and hatred with vibrant, joyful sounds.
“Township Jazz is a genre of music that evolved in South Africa during the days of apartheid. Music at that time was a source of inspiration. It was a source of joy. People were going through great hardships, and being able to sing, dance, and enjoy music brought people together. It just gave them a bit of hope.”
Otto Gumaelius, NYJO Lead Educator
Being a great jazz musician is all about listening to the world around you; hearing what musical questions are being asked through rhythm and melody, and crafting the sound of the improvised answer you wish to give.
In this way, the act of questioning has always sat at the core of jazz music, and there are few things more challenging to repressive systems of government than artforms that inherently question the status quo…
Against the background of these hopeful sounds, therefore, Township Jazz asked difficult questions; why was Nelson Mandela not free to be ‘walking down the streets of South Africa’? Why was ‘the nation weeping’? How could we ‘be there when the people start to turn it around’?
Township Jazz allowed musicians to uphold the collective right to question as they called for a better, freer future for all.
As a result, following the tradition of this music, we chose to ask the young people a question throughout this project – what does freedom mean to them?
Imagine Freedom Is…
“Finding joy in looking around,
Finding dreams in every sound.”
“Being still in the storm.”
“Music playing at any pace.”
“Find freedom in a friend.”
“Like living in a dream,
Where people collide happily.”
Above are some of the young people who took part in this project’s responses to our ‘Imagine Freedom is…’ prompt. Many of them drew a direct link between freedom and connection; looking for a way where we could all ‘collide happily’ together despite our differences.
What we saw repeatedly across these 3 days is how far music can take us towards facilitating this:
“Even if we don’t know each other, music brings people together. It gives them a chance to come out of their shells. It gives them a chance to connect. In our culture, we don’t just play the music. We have to sing. We have to dance a bit. We can have percussion. So these elements bring people together.”
Otto Gumaelius, NYJO Lead Educator
“The best thing was seeing how happy everyone was and how we all came together. I didn’t know many people here, and yet we all did this together.”
Molly, Project Participant
Making music is all about coming together to amplify and uplift each other’s sounds and voices. This is what the brilliant musicians of the Township Jazz era understood; that music is made by collectives, and so is change. If we can learn how to come together through the act of creativity, then we can also learn how to come together to push for a better way of living.
Collective movement through music is the powerful legacy that Township Jazz leaves to young people today; we hope that they can find a way to stand ‘still in the storm’ of the world as it is now and decide together on how they want to move forward.
If you’re interested in finding more about our National Widening Access work then get in touch today at [email protected].
You can also listen below to the mini-podcast produced following the project that tells this story in the young people and artists’ own words: