The north-west Londoner’s success offered him the chance to escape the estate he grew up on – but instead he’s trying to give something back, even after being stabbed last year
‘We’re probably the only estate left in London with a concrete pitch,” says Courtney Freckleton, better known as the rapper Nines. He is talking about Church End in Harlesden, north-west London. At the far end of the estate’s concrete sprawl of low-rise towers and terraced housing is a fading grey pitch with painted basketball and football lines, fenced in by high black railings. “We always complain, but now I’m in a position to help.”
He is aiming to regenerate the local community hub, the Church End & Roundwood Unity Centre, with proposals that include converting the concrete pitches to astroturf and staging a series of career workshops about the entertainment industry, from music law to scriptwriting. The kids in the area, he says, “need to know that you can be in the music industry and you don’t need to be a rapper. But I’m only one person, and there’s a million estates just like mine all over the country.”
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