Uprising Youth is a musical collaboration led by young musicians from around the world who advocate for intercultural dialogue, community building, and political resistance through global music. Our debut “One Humanity” album unites musicians from different cultures—of various ages and who speak different languages—to make music that addresses the Africa-Italy migration trend, affirms our shared humanity, and exemplifies the beauty of collaboration between artists of diverse origins. Recorded in professional recording studios in Syracuse, Sicily, Tunis, Tunisia, and North Carolina, USA, the music shares the stories of crossing continents and seas, coming together across cultural boundaries, and celebrating lives of peaceful coexistence in our new, shared home of Syracuse, Sicily. 

The lead vocalists of Uprising Youth are 16- to 22-year-old unaccompanied youth migrants from the Gambia, Nigeria, Senegal, and Tunisia fleeing poverty, insecurity, and lack of opportunity in their home countries. The instrumentalists of Uprising Youth are professional musicians from Italy, Brazil, and the USA who have accompanied globally renowned artists such as Manu Chau, Max Romeo, Ken Boothe, Erlend Oye, Fabrizio Bosso, and Joel Frahm. Uprising Youth performed two concerts in Syracuse in August 2018; composed, recorded, and produced a 10-track album of original music; and will be the subject of the documentary “Rhythms of Migration,” to be released in August 2019 by Extelligence Media. 

In Italy, recent parliamentary elections brought divisive, anti-immigrant politics into the majority, meaning that the lead singers of Uprising Youth will find it increasingly difficult to acquire immigration documents and will experience deportation as an ever-impending possibility. In the Sicilian political climate, an act toward dialogue, mutual understanding, and integration is tragically an act of defiance. For this reason, Uprising Youth chooses to make politically aware, socially engaged, and culturally unifying music which fosters empathetic awareness of the young migrants’ complex experiences, multicultural inclusivity in the local community, and resistance against unjust politics, uninformed ignorance, and divisive discrimination. Support the migrant musicians, future recordings, and performances by purchasing the One Humanity album!