Joshua Ribera AKA Depzman was a well-known Birmingham grime rapper on the cusp of stardom, but his life was cut short after he was stabbed to death in 2013. His mother Alison Cope set up The Joshua Ribera Foundation in his name to combat knife crime through education and by sharing his story.

The UK is facing a knife crime epidemic, and since Depzman’s death there have been over 1,877 more knife killings. Young people are the main victims and perpetrators of knife crime – and they weren’t listening to traditional anti-knife campaigns. We needed a way to cut through and get our message heard.

Young people are the main victims and perpetrators of knife crime, so they were the main target for this campaign. But young people don’t listen to public safety messages. We needed to make knife crime part of the conversation amongst 13-25 year olds.

The strategy was to make our message part of culture. Depzman wasn’t just a knife-crime victim, he was a Grime rapper on the rise, with huge potential. His death rocked the Grime scene and we wanted to tap back into that emotion by resurrecting him through Grime. JRF partnered with SBTV, the UK’s biggest urban music channel to send an anti-knife message through music, appealing to grime fans to spread the campaign.

On the anniversary of Depzman’s funeral, the song launched with a music video exclusively on SBTV. ‘Life Cut Short’ quickly ranked #11 on YouTube’s top trending videos. The song was also uploaded across music streaming platforms like Spotify and Apple Music. The hyper-targeted media push ensured it reached our key audience of young people. Depzman fans and the grime community shared it, reaching 6 million plays in 2 weeks across TikTok, Spotify and YouTube. People created their own versions of the song on TikTok, made reaction videos on YouTube and the song got airtime on BBC radio. The music video and song will remain on SBTV’s YouTube channel, Spotify and major music platforms forever as part of Depzman’s legacy. By bringing a stabbed rapper back from the dead, the anti-knife message cut through the noise to get heard.

• Total reach of 188 million impressions

• 6 million plays in the first 2 weeks across YouTube, TikTok and Spotify

• Ranking #11 on YouTube’s trending videos

• Shared by musicians like Skepta and Jaykae

• Played on BBC radio

• Featured on BBC News, ITV, Channel 4, The Sun and the Daily Mail

• Featured on the BBC’s primetime evening show: The One Show

• Shown to 30,000 school kids in youth violence workshops

• Shown in 65 prisons across the UK