Street Talent News

Thank you to all those of you who have already downloaded the Street Talent Productions debut single, Freetown Girls by Paps – we had a big day yesterday (Tuesday 12th April 2011) during which we saw the track rise to:

• #7 in the Amazon.co.uk Rap/HipHop Bestsellers List
• #48 in Amazon.co.uk “Pop” category
• #71 in ALL MP3 on Amazon!

The track has also, on 13th April, entered the most downloaded lists on iTunes UK, too, where it is currently #55 in Rap/HipHop chart, so please do think about downloading from iTunes and feeding your iPod before the end of the week too!

Download Links

• Paps “Freetown Girls” on iTunes UK
• Paps “Freetown Girls” on Amazon.co.uk
• Paps “Freetown Girls” on Amazon.com (for USA residents)
• Paps Freetown Girls on iTunes USA
• Also available on most major MP3 outlets, so do a search and you shall probably find!

The Story So Far…

Thanks for all the support so far – we’ve been overwhelmed by the rise and consistent success of this track, and its down to everyone taking a little moment out of their day to download, and Tweet and Facebook share a link to the track, or the single page on this website, every now and then.

For those of you who are not familiar with Paps and the history of Street Talent Productions, here is a good summary of how a group of friends in the UK came to be involved with this, in memory of our friend, Ed Sawyer, who met Paps back in 2007, before he was tragically killed in a car accident in Sierra Leone:

Paps is a young hip hop artist trying to make it in the music industry in Freetown. I first met Paps through a friend of mine from Newcastle University, Ed Sawyer.

Ed had gone out to Sierra Leone in 2007 to work on post-conflict justice mechanisms in anticipation of starting a PhD. He got to meet Paps through their shared interests in music in West Africa.

The music industry in Sierra Leone presents many of challenges for aspiring artists. First of all there is little investment. Many artists make little or no money from their music. The lucky ones are signed on to record labels who give them a meagre cut of their sales. Those who don’t have record label support often have to pay DJs to play their music on radio stations, meaning they must look for support from other groups. This support often comes in the form of UN subsidies or NGOs.

In short, the situation is not particularly sustainable, and not in the interests of young Sierra Leoneons.

Paps and Ed had a vision to change this.

They wanted to build a record label from the ground up. Run by the artists themselves, cutting out the exploitation, and reducing dependence on subsidies. Together they set up Street Talent Productions. STP aimed to promote the work of young artists from the streets of Freetown and beyond.

By the summer of 2007, Ed and Paps had released Paps’ first album ‘Street Talent’, and had just finished recording their first video, which was to be a key promotion tool for Paps.

It was the start of a project that would never have the chance to grow. Ed was tragically killed in a car accident whilst doing fieldwork in the north of the country.

Paps continues to write and record in Freetown, but living on no more than a dollar a day means his resources are limited.

If he is recording he must make savings elsewhere. This often means food. When he doesn’t eat he stays at home to work on his music and save his energy. If he’s working on his music he can’t work for money, so the circle is self-perpetuating.

Since Ed died some of his friends from Newcastle and elsewhere have been trying to help Paps continue to pursue his dreams and maybe in years to come, turn Street Talent Productions into the sort of organisation that Ed and Paps envisaged.

There are many challenges to face, not least the fact that we are all based outside of Sierra Leone. We have focussed on activities that will allow Paps to promote himself, firstly by setting up a website where you can listen to some of his tracks and read about his work. a Facebook page and a Twitter page too.

His new single is ‘Freetown Girls’, and is out this week.

So if you didn’t already have one, there are plenty of good reasons to download Paps “Freetown Girls” from Amazon.co.uk and iTunes ASAP!

Please don’t forget to share and Tweet the link to this page to help get your friends interested – the more singles Paps can sell from this first effort, the better his chances are of setting up the sustainable music business that Ed and Paps imagined in 2007.

Download Links

• Paps “Freetown Girls” on iTunes UK
• Paps “Freetown Girls” on Amazon.co.uk
• Paps “Freetown Girls” on Amazon.com (for USA residents)
• Paps Freetown Girls on iTunes USA
• Also available on most major MP3 outlets, so do a search and you shall probably find!