MVCC – We Are All Here (Video Premiere)

In association with MHF Live, MILK Glasgow and Lost Art Agency, the short documentary We Are All Here will receive its Scottish premiere at Saint Luke’s in Glasgow on Sunday 10 February. The film, produced and directed by Hannah Currie, is about Glasgow rapper Lumo (aka Calum Barnes), whose death in 2017 left a mark on the Scottish hip-hop community.

During the filming process while he was recording a poem for his departed friend, Andrew Malcolmson (aka rapper MVCC) and Currie had the idea to turn the poem into a song, which The Skinny are honoured to be premiering today ahead of the film’s premiere this weekend. Watch the video for We Are All Here, directed by Currie's brother Tim Currie, in the YouTube player above (click here if it's not displaying correctly).

"On 3 September 2017 my whole world collapsed," Malcolmson tells us. "My best friend Calum Barnes committed suicide at the young age of 21; he was an amazing friend, brother and son. He fought a daily battle with his mental health and sadly as we see so often he lost the will to fight on and chose to end his suffering through the act of suicide.

"The aftermath of losing Calum can only be described as a numbing sensation. Due to this I grew distant from speaking to anyone in the media and anyone who wasn't in my circle, I pushed opportunities away and set out to do something in Calum’s name represented by his closest friends.

"I received contact from Hannah Currie who explained very thoughtfully and straightforwardly her idea of making Calum’s life into a documentary. At first, because of my previous experiences with outsiders, I was very sceptical but the few months that followed only made me know that Hannah was the right person to put my brother’s life into motion.

"Fast forward through a really amazing time of working with Hannah and watching the film come together like a jigsaw puzzle, I still felt like I wanted to do something for Calum and during a filming day with Hannah where I was recording a poem we both came up with the idea of turning the poem into a song. That song is We Are All Here; it's produced by Kid Robotik and features the amazing vocals of Shamu, both members of the crew TogoFam which I am now part of.

"To have it feature in the We Are All Here documentary as well as being able to perform it live and watch everyone raise a light for Lumo in the crowd fills my heart with pride, and knowing that using my voice to help others only makes me more focused on tackling the epidemic that is suicide in the UK."

The documentary's producer and director Hannah Currie tells us: "I can’t wait for the Glasgow premiere of the film. It is shot entirely in Glasgow so it feels fitting to bring it home. It will be a privilege to watch it with so many of Lumo’s friends and fellow rappers – it will be a hugely emotional evening but I don’t think we’ll ever replicate that atmosphere ever again, and I’m really delighted to have performances by rappers who knew Lumo personally.

"His death has hit the hip-hop community really hard in Scotland, and collectively we want to take his story and make sure it reaches people it needs to reach." Currie concludes, "Too many young men are still dying by suicide and we are determined to keep the conversation going and end mental stigma so that more people feel able to open up about their struggles."

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We Are All Here is released on 8 Feb; The documentary of the same name gets its Scottish premiere at Saint Luke's, Glasgow, 10 Feb

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