Secret Millionaire donation rocks for Cork’s RuffKulture

ANYONE familiar with the format of the reality television show, The Secret Millionaire, will know the format: a rich benefactor is covertly embedded in a disadvantaged community to spread his largesse on projects he deems worthy of financial support. 

A cover story is concocted to justify the presence of the cameras.

So when the Gurranabraher Arts Project, in the northside of Cork city, received a call in the summer of 2013, asking if they could accommodate a film crew making a documentary on youth issues, they were sceptical.

“It kind of felt like they were looking for a bit of sensationalist kind of scandal: ‘Look at these people up there and it’s awful what they’re going through’, and that sort of thing. They were looking for that, we felt anyway,” says Garry McCarthy, a workshop facilitator attached to Youth Work Ireland Cork.

McCarthy is understandably protective of his young wards, but the wariness was misplaced — there was a ‘secret millionaire’ in their midst, and it was Warren Logan, of hair and beauty store, Hairspray Ireland. Logan was sufficiently impressed with the activities of ‘The Hut’, a recording and rehearsal space in Gurranabraher, where McCarthy facilitates workshops with teenage rappers, singers and musicians, that he awarded them €15,000.

Having announced himself on the scene a decade ago with his single, ‘Not Tonight (The Bouncer Song)’, McCarthy has produced and self-released two hip-hop albums under the name GMCBeats. Alongside workshop facilitators Rory McGovern and Ophelia McCabe, and with the support of Youth Work Ireland Cork and Music Generation Cork City, McCarthy has been helping would-be MCs hone their skills for a few years now.

Logan’s generous contribution enabled the team to conduct extra workshops and to produce an album.

Under the collective name RuffKulture, a 20-track CD has been launched. “Basically, the CD is just a compilation of all the young people that have been involved with the workshops over the last three years,” says McCarthy.

“The €15,000 was a huge help for getting this album together. It gave us more hours to actually work with the young people and give them some recording time, as well. And it allowed them to do some rehearsal workshops for stage presence, and things like that. It just allowed us to be a lot more active with them, up there.”

The project is open to everyone and is accessible to all. Asked what made Logan warm to the project, McCarthy says: “I think the thing that really swung it for him would be the fact that the workshops give the young people an outlet to talk about the negative things in life, or the things that they’ve been through. But that’s not what the workshops are all about. It’s not all doom and gloom, at all. A lot of it is celebrating life and enjoying life, but they do talk about things that happen in society, things that happen in their locality.”

McCarthy talks of fostering a “crew atmosphere” amongst the participants, an environment where everyone is supported and encouraged.

“I just get a kick out of their expression when they have a song done, when they get the song on their phone and they’re able to play it to people. And seeing them onstage, and just seeing them enjoy the whole vibe of it. That sense of accomplishment that I got when I made songs, and finished songs, and was able to play them to people.”

Facebook: RuffKulture