The Mixtape Project
A spoken word, music and video workshop responding to All Blood Runs Red
The Mixtape Project brought together wordsmiths, lyricists, beatmakers and content creators from Leeds, Salford, Lancaster, and Doncaster who all had something to say – verbally, visually or sonically!
Working with spoken word artist, rapper & musician Testament, and video artist Laura Spark, the young artists who participated in the project created their own lyrical, musical, and visual responses to imitating the dog’s unique theatre production All Blood Runs Red – which tells the extraordinary true life story of Eugene Bullard: One of the first black fighter pilots, and jazz drummer, spy, and civil rights activist.
Participants were invited to explore their individual and collective reflections on the themes and issues presented in the show, and were then supported to create original lyrical and poetic responses set to music and video remixed from the visual and sound designs of the show itself.
The workshops varied in length, from two days in Leeds to around two hours everywhere else, so different explorations of music and video were possible in different places, but everywhere we were amazed by the depth, wisdom, and humour of the lyrical content created by the participants, and by the musical and visual literacy they demonstrated.
Selected audio and video pieces created in the workshops are collected in the playlist below (which you can also see on our Vimeo page here), collectively combining to form an online ‘mixtape’ of creative responses from young artists across the country.
Supported by Arts Council England, the Nat Merriman Fund, Leeds Playhouse, Lowry, Lancaster Litfest & CAST.
