Ezra Collective’s Femi Koleoso on the “heartbreaking” closure of youth clubs
Ezra Collective and Gorillaz drummer Femi Koleoso has discussed the detrimental impact on society of the closure of youth clubs, labelling it “heartbreaking”.
Koleoso made the comments during an interview with Channel 4 News following Ezra Collective’s historic Mercury Prize win. The London group were awarded the acclaimed trophy for their 2022 album Where I’m Meant To Be, beating off competition from Arctic Monkeys, Loyle Carner, Lankum, Jockstrap, J Hus, Fred Again, Jessie Ware and more.
“It’s heartbreaking because someone like myself saw first-hand in HD how important they are. And I feel that if you haven’t quite interacted with it in the same way that I have, it would be easy to think they’re of no use, but I know how useful they are,” the drummer powerfully said.
He continued: “Anyone else who has been in contact with a youth club knows how useful they are, so you know, it’s heartbreaking. I understand why cuts happen, but I just don’t think it should be in that direction because I think the youth of the country, the youth of tomorrow, everything like that, is the most important thing.”
When asked about a possible “alternative” to youth clubs, Femi replied: “I’ve been making this point for a long time but you rarely see headlines of ‘Football academy player commits this massive crime’, ‘Young tennis player commits this massive crime’, you know, ‘Chess champion decides to do this’.”
“You don’t hear that headline very often, and I just have the belief that when you occupy young people’s minds in the direction of something positive, it takes it away from negativity. I think a lot of the other issues in society, a lot of other things that people talk about tackling, I think a lot of those answers come from occupying young people with things like youth clubs,” he added.
Watch the interview below.
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