Meet Lewisham Homes resident Kieron Morris (aka KamZz) a 19-year-old producer, vocalist, sound engineer and youth worker from Deptford.
Kieron Morris at the Albany, DeptfordKieron started producing his own music at just 14 and by 16 he was already a volunteer mentor at Alchemy (a Goldsmiths-run music programme aimed at young people at risk of exclusion). Soon after that, Kieron started working for The Albany theatre, where he supported grime artist Afrikan Boy’s music workshops at the Woodpecker Youth Club.
Lewisham Homes helps fund The Albany in Deptford as part of a continued partnership on a number of different projects that have delivered meaningful change and improvements to the lives of hundreds of young people across Lewisham.
Kieron has a deep background in music, thanks to his mother. Since beginning to produce tracks at 14, Kieron has become more experienced in youth work while helping other young people produce their tracks. His interests in the connection between music and youth work led him to recently apply for, and secure a place on, the Applied Social Science and Youth and Communities degree at Goldsmiths.
Alongside all of this, Kieron has also set up his own youth record label called Rezon8, with help from The Albany. Kieron said: “This was to give young people a place to be able to record and release music without the stress of financial issues, or being judged about the type of music they want to create.”
Kieron speaks powerfully about the impact that he believes his record label will have: “This will give the young people of Lewisham a place to speak their minds, be heard, and be supported with their own learning, rather than forced to learn in a way that doesn’t work for them.”
Under Kieron’s direction, Rezon8 will help young people make friends, build their confidence and improve their life chances. Kieron said about his label: “Lewisham is full of people from different backgrounds, all of them with different stories to tell. Through my label I want to give the young people a chance to tell their stories and amplify their voices, and a chance to be themselves without judgement.”
Throughout the lockdown, Kieron has continued to support and mentor young people remotely, answering their questions online as well as engineering and mastering their tracks.
Kieron has worked with 40 young people and made over 60 tracks with them so far with Rezon8.
The Albany is an important hub in our community, particularly for our young people. Lewisham Homes works closely with The Albany to help many young people like Kieron achieve their potential.
To find out more about the youth record label Rezon8 and the other good things going on at The Albany, visit the label’s website: https://tinyurl.com/rezon8 or watch a short documentary about the label that recently premiered on YouTube:
