#mr shay

[red4life-blog]

One of our presenters does some amazing stuff for the community. Find out by reading here :) http://hollogram.com/rep-endz-akshay-sharma-showed-awareness-local-community/

[amarettosworld]

The Mr Shay Story

Some months ago I spoke to Akshay Sharma of Leicester about a number of projects and ventures set up by the motivated youngster centralised around his many talents in art, including music, performance and design.

Originally setting out to follow in the medical footsteps of the stereotypical Asian career path, Sharma realised his passion for the art movement outweighed his interest in the sciences. During the university application process, Sharma tells me that in an interview with a professional surgeon it made him realise that he has so much more to say about his extra-curricular activities – including his role as Prospero in the musical The Return to The Forbidden Planet. Ironically the play was about science fiction. This experience resembled an awakening for Sharma, who realised that he can cultivate his expression through art to benefit others in the way that medicine helps people.

From performing his first rap at the school talent show, coming second place as young as ten-years –old, Sharma developed his rapping skills over time. Rapping amongst peers in secondary school in friendly rap battles, Sharma discovered an occurring problem – the absence of rapping over a backing track. Here Sharma explored the art of beat-boxing and creating musical rhythm without the need for an electrical device. As technologies advanced he was able to spontaneously loop the beats and immediately rap over them, which he introduces into his new projects.

Starting with college projects such as the Extended Project Qualifications where Sharma used music to engage with young people in an exciting approach, educating them about sexual health awareness. Further projects involving The Curve Theatre, The Might Creatives and The NHS have taken place where Sharma has received great feedback, support and funding.  Being involved in local projects, Sharma continued working with projects in his hometown of Leicester, starting his own projects including open mic nights and workshops with youngsters.

Sharma’s efforts and talent has not gone unnoticed as he was nominated for Young Artist of the Year for The Lord Lieutenant’s award for Young People in 2013.

Sharma preforms under the stage name Mr Shay at open mic nights such as Find The Right Words, Open Jam and Poetry Jam all held in bars around Leicester. Preforming with other musically talented people has lead Sharma to label his own brand, Colour Code Creations that hosts the new trend of ‘Spit and Follow’ taken inspiration from the NekNomination phenomena. Sharma instigated a safer way for individuals to come together and celebrate their skills by nominating other artists to rap about a specific word within 24 hours.

Sharma comments “NekNominations, it’s funny but when people start dying, it’s got to stop”.

A similar project by Sharma involving rap music called Rep Your Endz, attempts to bring young people away from gang crime after a stabbing took place in Leicester upon where an innocent family died as a result of gang revenge. A music video has been released on Youtube which was featured on BBC Radio Leicester with an exclusive interview with Mr Shay himself earlier this year. June 2014, ITV featured Sharma in an interview where he told the major broadcasting channel that the incident made him feel he needed to do something to inspire young people to do positive rather than negative. 

Sharma uses social media to spread awareness of his projects, aiming to involve youngsters in the community and encourage young artists to celebrate their talent. You can follow Sharma’s Facebook and Youtube pages under ‘Colour Code Creations’, and get involved in the ‘Spit and Follow’ trend on Facebook.

I ask Akshay what advice he has for young people, and he replies “For the young people that are going through a time of confusion in terms of what they want to do in the future, I would say absolutely 100% do what you want to do. Do what you’re passionate about and don’t get lured in to doing what you think is good for you. You should know 100% what is good for you. And it is a risk but you should be willing to take the risk”. 

P-FIRE COMMUNITY_ITV2000_Vimeo from ITV Central on Vimeo.

Photographs by Isabel Wong