👉🏽 Roots.Uprise: Awakening in Rap

Total Amount Requested: £10,000

🌱 Roots.Uprise: Awakening in Rap

Awakening in Rap is a project led by Amber Rose, Founder & Creative Director of the brand Roots.Uprise, in close collaboration with artists, facilitators, and community partners. Although Amber is applying as an individual, the work is co-created and delivered collectively - so when we say “we” or “our,” we’re referring to this wider network of people building the project together.

🎤 What the Project Is About

Roots.Uprise: Awakening in Rap is a movement to transform the narratives within rap music and our communities, starting in Brixton and rippling out to a wider audience - because our village, our city, our country, and our world need healing.

Brixton is a hub of creativity and urban music, a birthplace of influential sounds and movements. With this influence comes responsibility - the stories and messages born here shape culture far beyond our local area.

✊🏽 Why It Matters

Rap has always been a voice of truth - reflecting struggle, resilience, and survival. It holds the power to inspire and unite, yet too often, the industry profits from trauma, glorifying violence while silencing deeper conversations about growth and healing.

These narratives don’t just affect artists - they shape how society views Black communities, young people, and marginalised groups. When harmful lyrics and behaviours are glorified, they reinforce stereotypes, fuel division, and influence policy, policing, and systemic racism.

🌱 What We Will Do

Together, we aim to interrupt this cycle and create new pathways forward by:

• Collaborating with artists to express themselves authentically and responsibly
• Offering embodied coaching, creative workshops, and safe spaces shaped by lived experience
• Exploring how creativity and embodiment can support neurodivergent minds and help break generational trauma

By grounding this work in body-based healing practices, We're tackling health inequalities in Brixton by making wellness support more accessible and relevant to people often excluded from traditional services. These practices help release stress and trauma held in the body, build resilience, and strengthen both individual and community wellness.

We’ll work closely with 5 - 10 up-and-coming artists, offering paid opportunities for their time, creativity, and contributions.

💔 Beyond the Music - Tackling the Realities Behind the Rhymes

This work reaches beyond music and speaks directly to the realities that shape our streets and stories, including:

• The ongoing impact of gang violence and knife crime, which devastates families and shapes how communities are criminalised
• The objectification and abuse that normalise harm and distort how relationships and gender are understood
• Drug misuse and exploitation, often rooted in trauma and poverty, and woven into the darker edges of the music industry
• The pervasive stereotypes that feed systemic racism, influence policing and policy, and define how young Black people are seen before they’re even heard

By co-creating practices rooted in cultural wisdom and modern science, we’ll support mental and physical wellbeing and embrace a new era of awareness and connection.

🌍 Culminating Event - A Collective Call for Change

The project will culminate in an invite-only industry event at a Brixton venue such as Brixton House, bringing together a carefully selected audience of emerging artists, producers, labels, community leaders, and mental health advocates - including those with lived experience of gang violence, incarceration, and systemic trauma.

The event will include:

• A powerful panel discussion exploring how rap can evolve as a tool for healing, accountability, and cultural change
• A live showcase of original music created through the project
• A collective call to action for collaboration and new narratives within the industry.

While the event itself will be intimate, it will be widely publicised to amplify its reach and spark wider conversation beyond the room.

✨ The Vision

Rooted in a legacy of truth and resilience, rap already holds the power to heal and connect. With the right support, that power can grow, evolve, and reach further - starting here in Brixton and rippling far beyond.