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Outlook: The Power of Music to Change Lives

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Ryan Speedo Green as Colline in Puccini's La Bohème (credit: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera)

15/06/2017 GMT

The Power of Music to Change Lives

BBC World Service - Outlook, The Power of Music to Change Lives

Ryan Speedo Green went from juvenile detention to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera.

Ryan Speedo Green went from juvenile detention to the stage of the Metropolitan Opera. Plus the refugee from the DRC who uses music to heal the wounds of war.

As part of BBC Music Day, DRC singer Emmanuela Yogolelo performs a song called Mobembo, or My Journey, live in the studio.  In 2003, she fled the conflict in her country and was granted asylum in the UK. Today she uses her experience to help refugees, torture survivors and asylum seekers to express their problems through music in the British city of Manchester. 

American Ryan Speedo Green went from a troubled childhood, including two months in juvenile detention to becoming an opera singer performing all over the world with the Metropolitan Opera.  His life changed when he was taken to the opera and heard an African-American opera star singing the lead role in Carmen.  

Errol Linton was born to Jamaican parents in South London. He's won the Best Harmonica Player of the Year award three times, but he still goes busking on the London Underground. Together with his band, he performs the song Packing My Bags, live in the studio.

Black Coffee is one of the top electronic music producers and DJs in Africa.  One of his tracks was recently sampled by the American rapper Drake and the Grammy award winning singer Alicia Keys asked him to remix one of her latest songs. Born Nkosinathi Maphumulo in Durban, South Africa, he grew up in the Eastern Cape. But what many people don't know is that he DJs with just one hand after he lost the use of his left arm in a car accident. The BBC's Taurai Maduna met him in Johannesburg. 

Dori Ghezzi grew up in a working class family in a small countryside town in the north of Italy.  When she was in her 20s, she became one of Italy's most famous pop singers, almost by accident.  Through music, she also met the love of her life, another musician called Fabrizio De Andre, and together they became one of the most influential singing couples in the country. 

Image: Ryan Speedo Green as Colline in Puccini's La Bohème
Credit: Marty Sohl/Metropolitan Opera

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