Scottish Arts Council Young Scot Action Fund Films: Babibelz

Babibelz, Aberdeen Liam Knox (13) received funding to offer workshops and beginner’s classes to young people in Babibelz Street Drumming Band.

Hi we’re Babibelz and we’re from Aberdeen. We’ve got an average age of 13. Babibelz is a street samba youth drumming band and we go about Scotland playing for school gala’s and charities etc. Babibelz came about from the adult band Dezibelz they wanted to have a kids band to see how it would go, it all started from there really.

Working with Scottish Arts Council Young Scot Action Fund

We found out about Young Scot through advertising and also when we go to Gala’s there’s lots of stalls there and there was one of Young Scot so we picked up a leaflet. What we did was, I filled in the application form and sent it away. We got the money back and we had a meeting to decide what we were going to do with the money. So we decided that it would be best to get floor mounted drums and plenty of drumsticks so it means that people of all sizes and like if they are in a wheelchair which we’ve got at the moment, they can use it aswell. We also bought some shakers aswell for the little kids just to shake about and just let them join in and stuff. What I think the highlight is because we got more drums and drumsticks it means we were able to get more people into the band. Which means you get quite a variety of people coming from all the schools in Aberdeen. 

Impact of Scottish Arts Council Young Scot Action Fund

What we were at first was we were in Station House and when we were there, there was only about 5 of us there wasn’t a lot of people so because we moved from there to Inchgarth in a community centre we got quite a lot of kids that went to the community centre. Also we did a workshop at Inchgarth and that brought in quite a few people in tonight who are progressing really well. I think that they get a bit of confidence because they’re getting used to drumming and then they are getting good at it which gives them a good feeling aswell. Its great for that. It also brings more friends and stuff, more people, like new beginners have become really friendly with a girl that was kinda by herself really, that’s went well.

Next Steps

I think that the Young Scot Action Fund was really good because it got us drums and stuff like that that we needed because we didn’t have them. So if we didn’t have it we wouldn’t be where we are today. It means that because of the money that the Young Scot Action Fund gave us that we can get more beginners in and we can expand the band here, and we can get more beginners in and then that will make it even bigger, because there wasn’t a lot of us and now with the beginners its made it much bigger and it makes a much louder noise!

Young Scot gratefully acknowledges the support of the Scottish Arts Council and all the young people that helped make this film.