SDS Entertainment: From The Bop Live To Puma Suede Studios

Co-founder Makeda Bennett-Amparbeng runs a community entertainments company in Croydon called SDS Entertainment, whose core goal is to support young creatives through:live performances, artist development, workshops and exhibitions with a keen focus on helping the black community. Their current focus is on creating the Croydon Creative Hub and space that local creatives can call their own; they were awarded a grant from Arts Council England to do so.

As part of their creative hub project, in November 2020 SDS produced their first virtual live music festival entitled ‘The Bop Live’. The 4 staged mini festival hosted 4 main headliners and 11 supporting acts, showcasing some of the best grass-root talent deriving from London. Each stage was filmed at one of Croydon’s iconic venues portraying the ever vibrant live performance scene – Reggaemasters, The Front Room, Project B and Limitless VR. The 4 stages had also been curated by The Floor Magazine, Yes Gurl and of course SDS to produce The Setting Da Bars Stage, The Croydoners Stage, The Yes Gurl StaGe (all female lineup) and The Floor Mag Stage (alternative RnB). Click here to see the full Bop Live festival.

The mini community festival was produced to provide up and coming artists with a showcasing platform at a time when the pandemic provided limited resources to do so. After the success of The Bop Live, SDS caught the attention of sports brand Puma who wanted to support their journey in producing Croydon’s Creative Hub.

As well as a donation, Puma offered SDS two free studio sessions for up and coming Croydon artists Flintz and Shivon Kane at their new Suede Music Studio in London. Featured sessions include Knucks, 2 Shots Of Tequila, Shaybo, No Signal and more.

Check out the SDS Entertainment website and make sure you follow them on Instagram here to keep up to date with what they are up to!