Life Cut Short; Depzman

Joshua Ribera, aka Depzman, returns from the dead in an emotional deepfake music video commissioned by The Joshua Ribera Foundation, the charity that combats knife crime in his name. Created by McCann London in partnership with SBTV, the campaign was supported by Jamal Edwards who was integral in the creative conception before his death earlier this year. SBTV successfully launched a new generation of stars such as Stormzy, J Hus and Ed Sheeran; Depzman was predicted to be equally as successful.

Depzman was a rising star in the grime scene when he was killed in 2013, and since then knife crime has continued to rise inexorably in the UK. The video uses deepfake and audio technology to tell Depzman’s tragic story through a new song called ‘Life Cut Short’, describing his childhood, career and the night that he died.

The campaign was devised by Creatives Elliot Lee and Rory Peyton-Jones at McCann London, who were inspired to find a new way to talk to young people about knife crime through culture. The pair also directed the music video under their directing alias BRIGHTNIGHT. For this campaign the pair wanted to find an authentic voice that young people would listen to. Depzman was the perfect choice, but to get his message across they would have to bring him back, using technology.

Midlands’ rappers ShadowCV and T-Roadz ghost-wrote the lyrics with support from Alison Cope, Depzman’s mum, and the track was produced by music company Native Music. The lyrics were inspired by Depzman’s life and music, emulating his “flow” (the cadence and style of his rapping) and even using some of his old lyrics. Birmingham producer PhazeFX produced the instrumental in the style of grime from 2013 style with a 140bmp grime beat complete with choir sounds and melancholy piano.

To bring the vocal to life a base recording was manipulated by Native Studios to recreate Depzman’s voice, combining samples, different voices and autotuning. The team researched Depzman’s recordings from around 2013 and implemented the same techniques as he was using at that time, such as double tracking parts of the vocal, and subtle reverb, to try to be as faithful as possible to his sound. They also reached out to Depzman’s old crew, Invasion, to make sure it was authentic, resulting in a sound that matched Depzman’s voice at 18, just before he died.

The video has already made an impact across social media, amassing more than 4 million views so far, having been shared by artists Jaykae, JME and Skepta. The video will also play across 65 prisons up and down the UK to send a powerful message about the consequences of carrying a knife.