Urban Opera is pioneering project is funded by the Scottish Arts Council's, Youth Music Initiative with project design and management by Urban Learning Space (based in the Lighthouse, Glasgow).

The project has enabled 15 Glasgow based young people to take part in a range of music making activities that have equipped them with the skills required to successfully write and stage a unique performance. 'The Message', which is inspired by the bohemian collective in Puccini's Opera 'La Boheme', explores character narrative which deal with a variety of issues facing young adults who live in Glasgow.

Work on the project began in June 2007, with the aim were of pushing back the boundaries of Scotland's urban music scene in a spirit of collaboration, as well as engaging with those who are currently not earning a living from their artistic talent. While all crew members currently live in Glasgow, this diverse crew have cultural heritage which spans the globe from India, Zimbabwe, Egypt, Angola, Iran and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

Participants have worked one night a week for the past 6 months, with the support of a specialist team of creative professionals; to develop characters, write scenes and lyrics, as well as compose and produce their own music. The hotly anticipated finale which takes place on 6th December at ABC2 will showcase the creativity and talent of the crew members and is rapidly looking to be a sell out, as more than half the tickets have been requested and allocated already to the people of Glasgow, as well as friends and family members of the crew. The show promises to be a cultural experience that is like no other seen before in Glasgow.

Well we half got our act in gear and November has seen us getting on top of the code issue and actually getting a few interviews live. We have a nice little article with DJ Scuba Steve who gave us more than anybody an overview of Scottish hip hop and what he's up to. Deeko and Werd then dropped by with 2 new tracks and a chat about how things work between them. The interviews we had planned never have been done mainly due to the fact that we had 2 people offer to do interviews but these never transpired so if you fancy doing an interview with Loki, Spee or Boomstick email us some questions and you never know we may get these done.

Keep in touch g[@]bringdaruckus.com

Been a it of a earning curve going on here which may explain lack of new content as we have had to get our heads around the code which is very different from what we are used to and quite labour intensive, we have also been establishing new contacts. We have got a number of interviews planned but it's when people can find the time as we are so busy with other sites but I am gonna pull my finger out and get one together ASAP myself with a big Scottish name that you will all know and he's a lot to say.

You may have noticed we have removed the free downloads and put a shop in there place, the freebies will come back on somewhere but we do need to make a bit of cash to keep this site running and fund things this site can be involved in so if you are looking for graffiti or typographic books, or hip hop cd's get them though us you'll be hard pressed to get them cheaper and we promise to put the cash into keeping this thing running.

We are thinking of adding our own forum but don't want to dilute the scohiphop board be nice to hear your thoughts on what you feel we should do on this one, maybe you can think of some bits we could cater for that scohiphop doesn't.

Keep in touch g[@]bringdaruckus.com