As usual, our over-sensitive Canadian way of dealing with problems had led us to believe that the msela had reached their breaking point, that their friendships had been irreversibly shattered, and that certain individuals (Ninja) may have to be forced to leave the project for good. What we forgot was that we weren’t in North American anymore, that people argue sometimes, and that a little scraping in the life of a group of young street hustlers is anything but strange. Sure, we’d spent the night lying awake with Ninja’s threats of suicide and causing harm sending our imaginations reeling, but in the morning, after hearing that the theatrics continued over at the maskani, we realized that they were just that, theatrics. None of these guys would choose this life if they were given the choice, but if there is one thing a street youth is proud of, it’s being a street youth.

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As if we thought for a moment that the rest of the project would go seamlessly from here on out, more drama surfaced this week when we introduced housing for the msela. We (Urban Project) had always intended of setting the guys up with housing and getting them off the street at night but didn’t want to overwhelm them with a hip hop album and housing and school fees all at the same time, so we decided to stagger them. You can imagine if someone from a foreign country showed up and offered you a new apartment in downtown Vancouver, a studio space fully equipped with video and computer equipment, and the cash required to produced a feature film. Well, I can. It would be awesome. And I probably couldn’t handle it. I’d be completely thrown by it and would probably act irrationally as a result. That’s basically what (we think) this week has been like for the msela.

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(but not without some heated arguments, exhaustion, and a little machine gun fire)

Not bad for completing it within our first two weeks! The msela very took the project very seriously and wanted to go hard on recording everyday until all six tracks were completed. It was interesting to see them start to tire out as the end of the week neared, but it’s no wonder. We (Danya, Jay and I) were all exhausted from day after day filming in the “Bikram Room” (did I mention it was 30-35 outside and felt like a cool oasis in comparision to the studio, let alone the “booth” which was a few degrees hotter still) and these guys (we had to keep reminding ourselves) sleep outside on the street and still have to get at sunrise and wash cars until 11am when they meet us outside our hostel to head to the studio. It was impressive what they were able to accomplish, negotiating which tracks to record, deciding who would sing the verses, taking direction from the producers, and none of them having never seen the inside of a recording studio, let alone create an entire album.

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