'Jack' - single for Jack Merritt by Rosca Onya
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Song Video : One year on from the terrorist attack that resulted in two tragic deaths on London Bridge (29.11.19), one of Jack Merritt’s closest friends, an amateur singer-songwriter, whom he met through Cambridge University’s ‘Learning Together’ programme, Rosca Onya, is launching ‘Jack’, a memorial rap single in Jack’s memory. Rosca is hoping to raise £5,000 before the end of the year for non-profit organisations Learning Together, Just for Kids Law (JfKL) and JENGbA (Joint Enterprise Not Guilty by Association), from sales of his poignant and heartfelt single.
Rosca, aged 29, was born one of nine children in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Having witnessed inexplicable horrors as a child, Rosca and some of his siblings ended up without parents, moving from camp to camp within the refugee system, both in Africa and then in the UK. Two of his siblings tragically perished in unimaginable circumstances. His passion for music started in the refugee camps, where he would turn empty flour buckets upside down and drift away to another beat and another world in his head… the now-named ‘Rosca’s World’.
Remembering Jack, Rosca expressed from the heart:
“I met Jack when I was in HM Prison Grendon, an amazing therapeutic prison that helped me to view life in a different way. When I came to the UK, I was nine; I had experienced so much terror in my short lifetime and had no emotional or life parachute. I didn’t have people around me I could trust. I ended up in prison because I got involved with a local gang – they made me feel like I belonged by night while I was being bullied at school by day. Whilst I deeply regret and now take ownership of my actions, I never would have met Jack otherwise. Jack wasn’t like most people I had known before – he didn’t see black or white, as I wrote in the lyrics of the song. We were both passionate about music and he helped me pass a Criminology course at Cambridge University”
This page has been established as people expressed a wish to donate more to Jack's causes over and above purchasing the single.
Rosca, aged 29, was born one of nine children in the Democratic Republic of Congo. Having witnessed inexplicable horrors as a child, Rosca and some of his siblings ended up without parents, moving from camp to camp within the refugee system, both in Africa and then in the UK. Two of his siblings tragically perished in unimaginable circumstances. His passion for music started in the refugee camps, where he would turn empty flour buckets upside down and drift away to another beat and another world in his head… the now-named ‘Rosca’s World’.
Remembering Jack, Rosca expressed from the heart:
“I met Jack when I was in HM Prison Grendon, an amazing therapeutic prison that helped me to view life in a different way. When I came to the UK, I was nine; I had experienced so much terror in my short lifetime and had no emotional or life parachute. I didn’t have people around me I could trust. I ended up in prison because I got involved with a local gang – they made me feel like I belonged by night while I was being bullied at school by day. Whilst I deeply regret and now take ownership of my actions, I never would have met Jack otherwise. Jack wasn’t like most people I had known before – he didn’t see black or white, as I wrote in the lyrics of the song. We were both passionate about music and he helped me pass a Criminology course at Cambridge University”
This page has been established as people expressed a wish to donate more to Jack's causes over and above purchasing the single.
Organizer
Laura Suggitt
Organizer
England