THE sister of a 21-year-old Scots rapper who took his own life has said she hopes a documentary about his death will prevent more tragedies.
Calum Barnes’ suicide in 2017 not only affected his friends and family but sent shockwaves through the hip hop community in Scotland.
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Now a documentary which includes the rapper’s own video diaries, discovered after his death, is to air on the new BBC Scotland channel on May 13.
It is an adaptation of the award-winning film We Are All Here which is being shown in Glasgow tonight as part of the Scottish Mental Health Arts Festival.
His family hope the exposure will help prevent others having to go through the anguish they have suffered since Calum – better known as Glasgow rapper Lumo – jumped from a bridge into the River Clyde.
Speaking to the Sunday National, his sister Jenn said the family had seen no signs that Calum was about to take his own life.
“There was never a massive cry for help and at the time it happened we thought things were really good,” she said.
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“He went to bed then just got up on the middle of the night and went out. It was completely out of character. It was a terrible shock – horrific.”
When filmmaker Hannah Currie approached the family, Jenn said they were hesitant at first but decided it could be a positive legacy of the tragedy.
“People often still think it will never happen to them or to their friends and shy away from the fact that it can be so easily done,” she said. “We are trying to stop this from happening to anybody else and I think Calum’s friends at least have seen the heartache and hurt we have had to go through.”
She said the family had been overwhelmed by the messages of sympathy they received after Calum died.
“We do think that if only he had seen those it might have made a difference – if he had known how much of an impact he had made on other people’s lives.”
Jenn said the reaction to the film so far had been “fantastic”.
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“The whole point of making it was to show as many people as possible and we are hoping it will reach many more when it goes on TV,” she said.
Hannah said she had decided to make the film after reading a newspaper article by Scottish rapper Darren “Loki” McGarvey about Lumo’s death. “It struck me on many levels,” she said. “His youth and talent, the fact that he volunteered for a mental health charity to raise awareness and, generally, the sinking familiarity we have come to feel in Scotland with young men going missing and ending their own lives, gave me an overwhelming sense that this was a story that needed to be told, and made me dig deeper.”
She listened to Lumo’s entire back catalogue of music and said she was impressed by the searing honesty of his lyrics.
“When I eventually met his family, they gave me video diaries that they’d found after he died, and that cemented him as the narrator of his own story so he speaks posthumously in the documentary,” said Hannah.
“He was only 21 and going through quite a complex identity crisis. Basically he had his rap persona, Lumo, where he was performing as a very confident young man and drinking with friends, then there was the Calum persona who was struggling with anxiety and depression and the excess that sometimes goes along with rapper life.
“So on the one hand he was going out and partying but finding that was affecting his mental health. He then converted to Islam and changed his name to Mohsen by deed poll and I think part of that was seeking peace and trying to stay on the straight and narrow.
‘‘He would not drink and stayed in and prayed but he struggled with that and oscillated between the three identities.
“It came to a head and got too much for him to deal with, culminating in his suicide which took the hip hop community in Scotland by shock. He was very, very popular and had written, recorded and produced three albums so he was quite an exceptional talent.”
The documentary deals with not just his story but the aftermath and devastation he leaves behind.
Hannah added: “His family hope the documentary means he has not died in vain and his story will speak to audiences where other approaches to mental health education have failed. They are determined that no one else has to go through what they have had to go through.”
The documentary will air on BBC Scotland on Monday May 13 at 11pm and the film is being shown tonight (May 5) at Flourish House.
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