Check this phenomenal track from Durrty Goodz (a brilliant and massively underrated rapper) about the trials and tribulations faced by many kids on the estates: friends getting shot, relatives addicted to hard drugs, schools teaching nothing but irrelevant facts, broken families, and lack of opportunities.

The concept is very innovative: you hear Durrty in conversation with various young people from his area, discussing their problems with them. Here’s an excerpt from the first verse (child’s voice is italicised).

So what d’you wanna be?
Mmm, I ain’t sure yet, but trust me you ain’t asking no fool
I just passed my SATs, soon be in the last year of school
Probably go college, go uni, do my masters and all
Gwaan blood, that’s what I like to hear
So what’s your school sayin’, does it teach you about life out here?
Does it teach you when you leave there will be strife out here?
With peeps breeding and conceiving off the white out here?
Ya laughing, but it’s not right out here
Every day’s another struggle and a fight out here
They’d better teach you how to stand up for your rights out here
Cos they don’t teach you how to go to sleep without nightmares
Do they teach you this?
No, they don’t talk about that
Or talk about crack, or talk about black,
Or how we can try and make our way out these flats
They give speeches on the death of Macbeth and that
(Oh my gosh) And I couldn’t care less cos that be wack
I’d rather listen to rap, then teachers should get the sack
Yeah, I feel you blood, but ‘ere wot, don’t get all flared up
I’m a give you a lickle advice to get prepared up
I see you got the hustle but for you to get the bread up
When you see the feds, duck, but walk with your head up

Towards the end of the track, you find out that instead of speaking to other young people, he is in fact speaking to himself, reflecting on his own childhood and how he made something of his life in spite of poverty and prejudice.

They don’t know that mathematics for me is a quick task
But to flow poetry I used to ditch class
But you can make a pretty future out of shit past
Do you believe me, kid? Kid?
Shit, I’ve been talking to myself again
Daydreaming as I been walking by myself again
Thinking what I came to be, cos that kid was me

Don’t give up; rise up!

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You can download Durrty Goodz’s album ‘Born Blessed’ for free from his website www.therealdurrtygoodz.com.