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In a bid to tackle the worsening epidemic of knife crime and youth violence in the UK, Idris Elba has launched a new campaign called Don’t Stop Your Future, and he’s taken the fight straight to Parliament.
To kickstart the campaign, the actor/rapper/producer/DJ has released a track entitled “Knives Down”, featuring 18-year-old rapper DB Maz, to lay out his thoughts and the campaign’s mission. Bolstered by production from Fraser T Smith and The FaNaTiX, it’s a high-impact opening salvo that puts it all on the table, laying out his demands: serious changes in the law and lasting investment in youth services.
The new track also comes with a video directed by MD Films where we see Idris deliver his argument directly to Parliament. Real-world Idris also took the campaign to the corridors of power when he created a powerful installation in the green outside the Houses to visually represent the scale of devastation wrought by knife crime.
Speaking to Nadia Jae on her BBC Radio 1Xtra show, Idris explained that the campaign and the track are “an outcry. Knife crime is at a critical point in our society. We’re seeing more and more young people dying, getting hurt from knife crime, more and more young people going to jail, more and more families being disrupted. And, you know, there needs to be some real intervention right now. The ask is simple. First of all, the actual knives that are in our country—zombie knives, machetes, swords—let’s just put a straight ban on them.
“I wanted to, basically, get right under the noses of the people that actually can make a change. So we’ve put together an intstallation, if you like, outside of Parliament on a lovely piece of green where we have 279, I think, piles of clothes of young people who were murdered by knife crime.”
Hit play on the video above.
