WayOut Arts – Freetown, Sierra Leone (2022)

DJ Training, Music Production & Creative Capacity Building (2022–2024)

Grooveschool × LNA DJ Foundation × Wayout Arts

Overview

In November 2022, Grooveschool travelled with the Last Night A DJ Saved My Life Foundation to Freetown, Sierra Leone, to support Wayout Arts—a grassroots youth organisation working in one of the world’s poorest urban communities.

The purpose of the four-day recce was to:

  • Install fully functioning DJ equipment

  • Train local young people in DJ skills, mixing and music production

  • Support township graffiti workshops

  • Initiate podcasting and youth voice development

  • Assess long-term creative needs and sustainability

Despite unstable power, limited resources and the deep emotional context of a community shaped by second-generation war trauma, the programme achieved far more than expected and has grown into an ongoing international partnership.

Programme Delivery

🎧 DJ Training & Technical Setup

  • 3–4 operational DJ setups built from scratch

  • Software licence validation & power contingency planning

  • Cueing, beatmatching, mixing & gain staging

  • One standout learner, Queenie, became a peer-leader, teaching others

  • Young people mixing independently by day two

🎤 Music Production & Studio Work

  • Producer Steve Mark worked with local artists to create 4–6 tracks

  • Follow-up trip completed a full collaborative album

  • Tracks now released internationally

🎨 Graffiti & Visual Art Workshops

  • Delivered by UK artists Inky and Dick Out

  • Workshops held in township communities

  • Carefully navigated cultural sensitivities

  • Enabled young people to create work they could sell

🎙️ Podcasting & Youth Voice

  • First podcast sessions launched

  • Led to a long-term skills exchange with studio lead Jibo

  • Jibo later travelled to the UK for a week of training at Grooveschool

  • Included a broadcast interview with Jenny Steele

Local Context

Freetown’s young people face:

  • Historical and inherited trauma from the civil war

  • Limited access to stable power, internet or equipment

  • Extremely low economic opportunity

  • High vulnerability to exploitation

Despite this, the community displayed:

  • Strong hospitality

  • Deep pride and resilience

  • Eagerness to learn and co-create

  • A powerful sense of identity

This project provided emotional release, representation and real creative tools.

Impact

⭐ 1. Positive Emotion

  • “Life-changing” and “the best thing I’ve ever done” (informal quotes)

  • Joy, expression and pride during DJ and graffiti sessions

  • Renewed belief in ability and possibility

⭐ 2. Engagement & Flow

  • 4 DJ rigs running simultaneously

  • Young people in deep focus, learning rapidly

  • Peer-led teaching emerging naturally

⭐ 3. Relationships

  • Strong bonds between the UK team and local youth

  • Sustained relationship with Wayout Arts

  • Ongoing mentoring of Jibo and support for emerging artist Mash P

⭐ 4. Meaning

  • Work took place in communities marked by war-related trauma

  • Participants expressed that the project “made them feel seen”

  • Music and art became tools for identity, pride and healing

⭐ 5. Accomplishment

  • Album completed and released internationally

  • 10–12 young people trained directly

  • 20+ wider beneficiaries

  • 1 international exchange

  • Sustainable creative systems now embedded

Legacy

The recce trip sparked a long-term partnership:

  • Continued LNADJ missions to Sierra Leone

  • Ongoing remote support for Wayout Arts

  • Established youth-led podcasting

  • Peer-teaching now embedded locally

  • UK exchange visit enabling Jibo’s professional development

  • Foundational learning for future global Grooveschool collaborations

This programme stands as a powerful example of creativity, resilience and international solidarity.

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