The work was specifically targeted to reach an audience of young people, who are wired to ignore public safety messages from authority. To overcome this, we chose to use Depzman as the voice of the campaign, resurrecting his classic flow using recording and audio technology. We created a grime track to communicate our message. We needed this song to become part of grime culture, so we partnered with SBTV, the UK’s biggest urban music channel & the platform that first propelled Depz to fame, to give it the stamp of legitimacy.

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.

The Joshua Ribera Foundation 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. Using deepfake technology and audio manipulation, Depzman was brought back to life to release one final song titled ‘Life Cut Short’.

Birmingham rapper Shadow and Depzman’s old crew wrote the track, and his voice was digitally resurrected to rap the lyrics. It told his story of life and death, weaving in old clips and lyrics both old & new to deliver the anti-knife message in an emotional way. The song was launched with a shocking music video showing the dead rapper using deepfake, a derelict church was chosen to communicate the theme of lost potential.

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

We turned the story of Depzman’s life, death, and lost potential into a catchy Grime track, written in his trademark style. This song and music video fit was a perfect fit for SBTV, the channel who launched his career with a freestyle shot in Ibiza nearly 10 years ago.

SBTV is a British music media company founded by Jamal Edwards, focussing on freestyle rap and music videos, specifically Grime, a popular genre of UK rap. It has launched some of the world’s biggest British artists including Stormzy, Ed Sheeran, Skepta, Dave and Jessie J. Depzman was one of the rising stars of the channel before his death, so they were the ideal partner to resurrect him.