A community arts company showcasing home grown and emerging talent has launched a website promoting Croydon’s creative community.

Funded through The Arts Council, the SDS Entertainment web site features interviews with rising rappers Jords and Marc Jones, live sessions and educational information about the business, funding and financial aspects of the music industry.  

Founded by Makeda Bennett-Amparbeng and Jade Reid in 2018, the crux of SDS Entertainment’s work is focused on creating safe spaces for young local talent to express themselves through the mediums of rapping, singing, poetry and comedy. 

The web site: www.settingstandards.com also has a section on Ones to Watch including interviews with emerging artist collective SeeOur7 who appeared alongside Loyle Carner at the Nature Needs Heroes launch party in Thornton Heath.

In the interview Vox Sly, member of the SeeOur7 crew, which includes rappers, DJs, dancers and beatboxers says : “SeeOur7 is a play on the postcode we all live or work in – the postcode CR7, which is Thornton Heath.. Usually that postcode is associated with a kind of bad rep as it’s known to be a bit of a problematic area sometimes. But, there’s a lot of amazing people from here as well, a lot of incredibly talented people. We came up with that name just to showcase that really. “

SDS Entertainment was born out of Makeda’s involvement in the 2017 campaign against the Met police live music risk assessment Form 69, which was scrapped following criticisms that it unfairly targeted grime artists and was “racist”.

SDS has also held a series of hub nights at the Croydon music venue The Front Room located on St Georges Walk. 

Working alongside Makeda and Jade is Mykaell Riley, a former artist and music producer, who is director of the Black Music Research Unit at the University of Westminster and Wozzy Brewster OBE who was recently inducted into the Music Week’s Women in Music Roll of Honour. 

SDS played a pivotal role during The ENDS Festival last year – connecting the organisers with emerging homegrown talent from Croydon including: Marc Jones who since his appearance at the festival, has amassed over 3 million streams on Spotify.