Young group showcase its talent

4:37pm Thursday 28th August 2008

Junior MCs, street dancers and budding chefs will showcase their talents at a youth group extravaganza in Oxford on Friday night.

More than 60 children and teenagers will take to the stage at Blackbird Leys Community Centre to celebrate the culmination of four weeks of activities organised by the Leys Community Development Initiative (CDI) this summer.

The nine- to 19-year-olds will demonstrate to friends and family the skills they have learned during the four-hour show, from 6pm.

Among the highlights will be a band of junior musicians who have spent a month perfecting lyrics and backing tunes for songs, which highlight the good things about the estate.

The young MCs have spent hours practising in a recording studio at the community centre ahead of their stage debut tonight.

Zyron Gabbidon, 12, from Choswell Spring, Greater Leys, said: "MC'ing is great because you get to spit bars (a form of rapping). At CDI we have started MC'ing about knives and guns and all the badness in the streets. We want to show that sort of thing is bad."

Fabian Audifferen, 11, from Long Ground, Greater Leys, who uses the stage name MC Flex, said: "It has been really good. I am MC'ing about my family and CDI.

"You need positive bars to spit about. If you chat about beating up people, that's wrong."

Young people, who have run a café at the community centre as part of the youth group's programme, will serve food to the audience.

Street dancers will bop to hip hop tunes against a backdrop produced by the Leys CDI art group.

The event will also include a slideshow of superhero comics created by young people using desktop publishing software.

Marsha Jackson, Leys CDI project manager, said: "It is going to be like an old school disco extravaganza.

"It will be a showcase for all the young people in Leys CDI - they've all worked hard and been extremely focused.

"Leys CDI has been brilliant this summer. We had a trip last week to Alton Towers and took 88 people. We normally take about 50."