Untangling Lights is hFACTOR’s community outreach programme and the heart and soul of how we operate. It was created primarily to identify the needs of the Lagos Island community and respond by using a social enterprise model to foster business models that use creative approaches to solving problems and generating revenues. It is named eponymously to allude to the action of untangling nodes of light and potential that exist amongst a myriad of social barriers.
Our largest project to date is the Streetlights Collective, established by hFACTOR in 2018 as a group of musicians who live in and are inspired by the Lagos Island Streets. Today, the SL Collective organize monthly Jam Sessions and talent showcases to give other artists living in these environments the platform to present their work and to use the galvanizing power of music to bring people together. Strong talents then go on to mentorship opportunities, which we help organize. We also creative direct their music videos.
The Streetlights Collective is also the embodiment of an idea: anyone can make it as long as you work hard and work together. Today the Collective has grown well past its core group of 7 members to include dancers, poets, instrumentalists and many more; all working in tandem, holding tightly on to their charge to “light up the streets!”.
“The Streetlight Song”
And they were producing these tunes
That were at once from the streets and their hearts
Passion, longing and how ganja is the answer. always.
It all melted into the cacophony of sound around us
Car horns bleating, us singing, church anthem screeching
Siren welching.
What siren? There’s never cause for alarm.
Just don’t die o!
What happened happens always
Life comes calling
And reality rolls as the punch itself
Hustle was real and struggle was harder
But hope, hope, hope
And we sang and we rapped and we danced underneath cloudy moon and unfinished buildings
This ain’t a welcome party
Say what you want, bros how far?
And they’ll say it loud- with their crying eyes
OMO give them some content
They just need some good ass content from this side of the continent
