“You think you can stop us? I don't think you can. We have the energy. I'm going to tell you all about it. I searched for my spark and I found it. Come on audience, start jumping.”
“Initially I was like, 'Do you think they can move like we do? I doubt it.'” Garry McCarthysays Kabin Studios founder and creative director. Helen Pidd“But later on, I was like, ‘Let’s talk about the energy of kids.’ ‘Do you think you can stop us?’ If kids really, really want to express themselves, you can’t stop them from doing that… Why would you want to stop them?”
The Kubin Studios, a non-profit organisation based in Knocknaheeney, County Cork, runs workshops for young people who want to make music, and in May, the Kubin Crew (the Kubin Studios group for people aged nine and over) worked with refugee children from Lisdoonvarna Crew, County Clare, to record “The Spark”.
“I thought, wow, this is such an amazing song,” one child told Helen. “I fell in love with it straight away.”
The video quickly went viral, garnering 1.3 billion views on TikTok.
“Part of Kavin's role is to tell our stories through rap, songwriting, hip hop, storytelling and poetry, and now we're doing that on an international level,” McCarthy says.
Also, Rory CarrollThe Guardian's Ireland correspondent spent a day with the Kabin and Lisdoonvarna crew at Electric Picnic music festival.
Photo: Youtube
