03 February 2023

We’re thrilled to be supporting a brand-new hip-hop theatre show by 20 Stories High tour North West schools and community centres this Spring. LOOPS explores police racism and white allyship, and is a show full of Black joy and empowerment, uplifting music, and practical strategies on how to deal with ongoing police encounters.

Following a day in the life of Djibi - a young Black man living in a largely white area of Liverpool - LOOPS explores stop and search, institutional police racism and how it affects Djibi’s relationships with his family, friends, and wider community.

Written and directed by Keith Saha, LOOPS was developed together with the show’s performers Winston Branche (Peaky Blinders, The Streets Where We Live) and rapper/producer Mal Lidgett (BBC’s Rap Trip), who has created original live music.

A vital element of the creative process has been the involvement of Chantelle Lunt (Merseyside Alliance for Racial Equality) and Black and Global Majority artists and activists local to Liverpool and Toxteth. As Keith Saha explains:

“We’ve been having ongoing conversations with young Black people and People of Colour about racism within the police and the traumatising effects of stop and search. 

“20 Stories High also learnt, while leading creative empowerment workshops for young people at the first ever Liverpool Against Racism Conference in 2021, that not one of the four secondary schools involved had ever explored racism in the classroom.”

During this time, 20 Stories High were involved with our production of My White Best Friend North at the Everyman in 2021, a festival for Global Majority writers to pen honest letters to their white best friends. Many explored white allyship and what this meant, with the event bringing Keith and Chantelle together for the first time. Keith continues:

“Chantelle had written a piece about her time in the police force. Not only did her letter to her white police colleague confirm that racism was alive and kicking in the force, it also shone a light, for many of us, on how severe it actually was.

“We knew we needed to do something together, something to respond to what was happening. As an activist theatre company, making a show to tour into community spaces for young people was the perfect response.”

Reflecting on why theatre was the answer, Chantelle Lunt said:

“When you see a good performance, you really experience what is happening. And theatre allows moments of levity: it’s not always as hard hitting as a speech or document. It humanises the experiences of marginalised people and, when it comes to racialised people, it can resonate deeply.”

Keith has high hopes for the play as it heads into schools and community centres:

“The hope for this play is that it can open up a conversation in those spaces where conversations aren’t happening, to offer tools to young Black people and people of colour and to fully explore what white allyship means and to bring Black joy and empowerment to young people.”

For more on 20 Stories High and LOOPS resources, visit 20StoriesHigh.org