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Outlook: Escaping a life on a dumpsite with classical music

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Escaping a life on a dumpsite with classical music

05/04/2022 GMT

BBC World Service - Outlook, Escaping a life on a dumpsite with classical music

Simon Karuiki Ndungu grew up in a slum scavenging for rubbish. Music was his ticket

Simon Karuiki Ndungu grew up in a dumpsite slum, and became involved in the local gangs. Music was his ticket out.

Like many young people in his community, Simon Karuiki Ndungu grew up scavenging for things he could sell. His home was Korogocho, a Nairobi slum situated next to the city's main dumpsite. The poisonous gases and toxic water weren't the only hazards -there was violence as well. Rival gangs fought for control over the dumpsite, and by the time he was 8 years old Simon was running guns for them. Then, as a teenager, Simon started turning his life around. An organisation at the edge of the dump, Ghetto Classics, introduced him to classical music and the saxophone. The instrument would help him process the hardships around him, and his new love of music would be Simon's ticket out of the slum. He spoke to Outlook's Emily Webb. 

As an art student in the 1970s, Michael Jang took thousands of photos of everything from San Francisco street scenes and LA party culture to domestic shots with his family. He graduated, got work as commercial portrait photographer, put those old snaps away and forgot about them. Decades later, on whim, he submitted the old photos to San Francisco's Museum of Modern Art. The work garnered instant acclaim and overnight he was being recognised as one of the era’s most important documentary photographs. Some of his work has been assembled in a book called Who Is Michael Jang? He spoke to Emily back in 2019

Get in touch: outlook@bbc.com

Photo: Simon Karuiki Ndungu 
Credit: Ghetto Classics/Rich Allela

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