Residence

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

Some of the guys wanted to make a Reggae track. The group agreed on a chord progression and then split up to create a backing track while starting on writing the song. The group put the song in a key that would be comfortable for the saxophonist to play on and he started finding the notes that would work with it.

The group had to work fast to record electric guitar parts, a beat, piano, organ, bass, saxophone, guitar solos and vocals. The guy playing sax was not confident at first and said he was no good at making melodies, but he was encouraged and when he got up and recorded it sounded great.

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

One detainee wrote this song while in prison. He recorded the verses pretty much in one take and everyone was really surprised and impressed! He had three verses, and the group arranged the song to make it longer and more varied. Shammi worked with the group to double-track some vocals, making them into a chorus, copying some bits and adding effects like distortion.

This song really motivated some of the detainees to write more.

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

“This session had quite a few people come in from time to time... Some joined the vocal group and others sat and got involved with the production side. It was nice to have a 'working studio session' in action” – Shammi Pithia

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

This track was the vision of one of the members of the group who wanted to make a dancehall kind of song with a strong western influence. "So he started messing around with sounds and started to record a beat. He was very open to suggestions and ask what the rest of the group thought. A couple of the other detainees started to write lyrics and a melody. Everyone was loving the tune as it had a really great vibe to it." - Shammi Pithia, Musician In Residence

This track received a Gold Award in the 2018 Koestler Trust Awards!

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

The song reveals the ongoing fights and struggles detainees face, fights to leave, fights to stay, but ultimately the fight for freedom. 

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

This song was one of the first to come out of the Musician In Residence workshops, it started out as a reggae beat with some guitar riffs. The group were then challenged to come up with some lyrics to form a song. Some of the group were intimidated by this as many of them had never written lyrics, but with Shammi's encouragement the lyrics started to flow.

One of the members of the group came up with ‘entertain the world’ which provided a starting point to which others were able to add and before long the group had come up with a whole page full of words and phrases which ended up with:

Entertain the worldWe are making beatsWe got food for the soulCreating peace withinPut a smile on your facePut a smile on your faceWe gona put a smile on your faceWhen there’s volume on the bass

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

The group decided they wanted to make an afro beat track so this is what they did. Shammi worked closely with one of the detainees to sequence a beat, starting with the kick and snare. 

Along the way they would ask the others what they thought and took the feedback on board. A couple of people had ideas for some melodies, and these were then recorded on trumpet.A chord progression and bass line was then added.Everyone started writing lyrics and one of the detainees came up with a chorus, and after some editing it fitted right in. It was a group effort to edit it, but it sounded great in the end The chorus was recorded and then everyone recorded their verses as demos in Nigerian, Swahili and English. "This was a really nice mix and nice that people felt comfortable enough to speak in their language. Often, people say they can't write lyrics because they ‘don’t know English’, simply telling them that they are free to write in any language they wish really opens the doors." - Shammi Pithia, Musician In Residence

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

“We cranked the music up loud and everyone was singing along as a huge group to the chorus and dancing together. It was quite a scene, everyone was super happy and really enjoying the music. Huge smiles around the whole room and a real sense of joy. This was a truly amazing experience and a really proud moment for me. I do a lot of music workshops and see a lot of positive results, but this was something else. I think I’ve only hit this level of positive effect a few times before” – Shammi Pithia

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

“I started by showing them how to make a drum beat on the computer and then one guy had ideas for the melody line. We soon had a basic backing track up and running that everyone really seemed to love.

Next, people wanted to record things on top. Someone recorded some Djembe and then two guys took turns in freestyling some vocals. The vibe here was hot! So much energy from all of these guys. When we listened back people would be dancing and cheering along - really good fun” – Shammi Pithia

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

This idea for this song came from a detainee who wanted to make a sad song. When asked why he said that he had broken up with his fiancée. This was sad; but the songwriting process offered him music to express himself and help him through it, and resulted in a beautiful, heartfelt track that many other detainees contributed to.

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

This song started life during one of the evening sessions at Harmondsworth when the group decided they wanted to create a brand new track. It started with the beat which one of the detainees came up with. The group then chose some chords based on the vibe everyone agreed on. Very soulful.

There were two rappers and two singers in the group, so the singers went off to write a chorus and some sung verses while the rappers wrote some rap. The vocalists were then recorded one by one with help from one of the detainees who had been developing skills in music production as part of these sessions.

"This tune is wonderful and just shows how great music can be. We had a very different set of people, but they all worked together respectfully and encouragingly with each other to produce this wonderful song. We have singing and rap in English and Albanian. You could tell everyone was proud of the song, it has such a nice message." - Shammi Pithia, Musician In Residence

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

“Once the beat was finally ready we started recording parts, starting with the chorus and then verses and finally some guitar improv.

After someone had recorded there was a massive cheer from everyone and a lot of respect given to all. Lots of passer-by’s dropped in and loved what they heard. People just sat around and vibed with us. It really did feel like we were some place else, not a detention centre, the vibe was too jolly and upbeat. When we had finished recording everyone was very pleased and proud. There were smiles all around and people really appreciated what we had created” – Shammi Pithia

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

The session during which this song was created started late so the group didn't have  enough time to build something from scratch. Instead the group searched through the loop library and selected a guitar sample and went for a soft drum n bass feel for the beat. This was enough for a couple of the members of the group to get down to some lyric writing. They decided to go for an optimistic feeling for the song around hope.

While lyrics were being written another member of the group recorded some piano and then some guitar. At the same time, a guy who has been in a few afternoon sessions recorded some piano and synth parts. At this point one of the rappers who had worked on Heart Broken joined so he started work on some words to add to the track. 

"The song is really nice and again we were able to produce and record a full track in one session." - Shammi Pithia, Musician In Residence

This track was written and recorded by detainees at Harmondsworth Immigration Removal Centre as part of the Musician In Residence programme which provides weekly music-making workshops at the centre.

“They wanted to do a rap/trap song so that's what we did. One of the guys asked if he could use swear words and personally I think as long as it's not going to offend anyone or is intentionally targeted at anyone its fine. Rap music is full of bravado and swearing is part of the music, so it didn't feel right to restrict anything. I was happy to let them use whatever words they liked under the condition they would not be upsetting or threatening anyone. They were fine with this, it was more about appearance than anything else” – Shammi Pithia