"I started to write an album that would try to reach out to these kids and, in some ways, to be a father to these kids, because they were parentless," said Ben Drew, aka singer/songwriter Plan B.
The aim of his early music, he added, was to "expose gun culture for what it really was – the grim reality. Because 50 Cent is very lucky. The reality is that if you are shot once, you are going to be dead."
The controversial actor and soon-to-be film-maker's appearance was one of the most eagerly anticipated at the TEDx Observer festival of new ideas at the Sadler's Wells theatre in London. Thousands also watched a simultaneous broadcast on screens at parallel events around the country.
The forthright performer, who grew up in the East End of London before he found musical success as a rapper, was introduced by the DJ Goldie. Explaining his creative journey, Drew said: "I got tired of defending hip-hop, the music I loved, and I got tired of the politics of it. Although I knew it was the only music that would reach these kids."
Footage from Drew's uncompromising film iLL Manors, which is out later this year, was screened after the singer explained how a sense of injustice has fuelled much of his work. Creative endeavour as a route out of frustration and social alienation was not just an appealing idea, Drew suggested, but a growing political imperative.
The theme of the day was "where inspiration meets action" and the audience was treated to a huge range of variations on it. Whoops rewarded the contributions of Pauline Pearce, the community worker who walked into London's riots last summer on her way home from work and then did her best to dissuade looters.
Barnstorming performances by South African musician Hugh Masekela, Mali's Amadou and Mariam, who were introduced by singer Cerys Matthews, and later by Lianne La Havas, Rosemary Nalden, the choir Only Boys Aloud and Plan B, all won cheers of appreciation, while, as befitted the historic London venue, dance also enjoyed its moment in the limelight too. There was an uplifting appearance by psychologist and dancer Peter Lovatt and Alvaro Restrepo, who brought stories of his inspirational work from the barrios of Colombia, where he is using dance to build the self-confidence of deprived young people.
Martin Bostock, a London public relations expert said: "The whole TED concept is fantastic, I think, but I found Giles Duley's talk awe-inspiring. It was a unique story."
The photographer opened the morning session with his extraordinary account of his brave, outward-looking response to suffering a terrible injury. Last year Duley was on assignment in Afghanistan when he stepped on a land mine and lost both legs and his left arm in the explosion. "My body was a living example of what war can do to somebody," he said. Duley's response was to focus on the difficulties of those around him, something he now felt better able to understand.
Robin Dunbar, the director of the institute of cognitive and evolutionary anthropology at Oxford University, showed the audience how he had scientifically unwrapped the sentiment and cant surrounding modern ideas about friendship and the enhancing role of social networking technology. Internet tools such as Twitter and Facebook do nothing, it seems, to increase the number of people that we interact with in a meaningful way. In other words, you will not have more friends simply because you tweet. The maximum number of people in an average "social cognition circuit" was 150, a figure now known as Dunbar's number. (Ironically, as Dunbar pointed out, it was Facebook that first gave him this uninvited kudos).
TED began in California 23 years ago. Speakers address the key themes of technology, entertainment and design. Saturday's event also paid a lot of attention to new analysis of human behaviour and trying to make it work for society, rather than against it.
Observer editor John Mulholland, who presented the Londonevent, said: "One of the most important things, it seems to me, that becomes clear from the ideas being talked about today is just how vital it is to harness what young people can do. And repeatedly, it is the more creative attempts to do this that appear to work and to be the most worthwhile."
Many of the speakers had taken their innovative ideas straight out into the field, from Lebanese farmer and food activist Kamal Mouzawak to Rosemary Nalden, a New Zealander living in London who gave up her flat to go to run a music project in Soweto for young children called Buskaid. Nalden calls compromise "the dirtiest word in the English language" and she is convinced about the value of what she is doing. "Music is a huge agent of transformation."
Some of the younger contingent in the crowd may have been drawn to the event by Ben Drew's name, but others were attracted by the idea of TED itself. They appeared to go home satisfied by a day of huge variety and stirring debate.
"There is a massive mix of ages and of background here," said student Olivia Grosvenor, 22. "I recently got into TED online and I knew my friend would love it too, so I persuaded her to come along too, even though she had never heard of it."
The Observer TEDx event was supported by venue Sadler's Wells and ethical caterers Squid & Pear squidandpear.com
