Natasha Hart: A Journey of Resilience, Music, and Giving Back

OCA Magazine: Tell us about yourself and your creative activity / work.
Natasha Hart: Singing is a hobby for me, a release and a way to channel my emotions and life experiences. I have three passions – family, the charity I lead and singing. Each one of them gives me an immense amount of pride and hope.

My main job is as the founder and Chief Executive of Newham All Star Sports Academy (NASSA), a charity which supports disadvantaged young people in east London. We give the young people the opportunity to play basketball and to gain coaching and officiating qualifications. We also educate them on things that affect their daily lives, like knife crime, gangs, drugs, alcohol, even healthy eating. But most of all, we support them with their mental health because life isn’t easy for teenage boys and girls growing up in east London. Our coaches come from the same communities and in some cases have lived the same lives as the young people they now mentor. It is a job, but really it is more than that. I still feel the same responsibility towards these young people that I felt when we first thought of founding NASSA back in 2005.

The charity has won many awards. We were named the UK Charity of the Year at The Charity Awards 2014, while I was fortunate to receive an MBE from Her Majesty Queen Elizabeth II in 2015. I was also invited to carry the Olympic Torch ahead of the London Olympics in 2012 and the Paralympic Torch before the Paralympic Games in 2014. But really, that individual recognition belongs to all of the NASSA young people, because none of us at NASSA is anything without them.

Music is a hobby. I go to a friend’s studio at least once a month when time allows. I was a singer when I was 15, 16. I sang in restaurants and clubs, solo, as part of a duo and in a band. When I moved to the UK, I became a professional entertainer for over five years. I had a cabaret show, was a DJ and even ran karaoke nights in pubs and clubs across the UK.

I gave that up in 2001 to concentrate on bringing up my two boys, but it so amazing to re-discover music now. I write songs about my experiences in life.

OCA Magazine: How did you choose your path and who is your role model in the creative space or life?
NH: My role model in music is my unborn son who died inside me on October 13th, 1994. My memory of it is really clear in some ways, but also it is like it was in a dream. I was left in a room in the hospital all on my own when he died. I didn’t know what was happening.

At the time, I spoke very little English, I had no money, no friends. I couldn’t bury him until three months later to the day, January 13th, 1995. I carried his tiny coffin to the grave myself. He was buried in a communal grave. I had no money to do anything else for him.

When I wrote ‘Angel Star’, it was for him. The video was shot this year in the same cemetery he is buried in. ‘Angel Star’ has taken so much weight off my shoulders, putting my feelings into words after all this time. It is hard to believe that my son would have been 30 this year. My son will live forever in my song…

When I was younger, I wanted to have 10-12 children. Life didn’t allow me that in the way I imagined, but now I have hundreds through NASSA, so I have got them in different ways.

I got back into music at the beginning of 2023. My mum was turning 80 and she had supported me for 35 years here in London. So, I wrote ‘Thank You, Mother’ for her. The track was released in August 2023. It brought back memories of why I went into music in the first place.

OCA Magazine: What is your main achievement in 2023-24?
NH: Getting back into music and releasing nine songs.
I stopped in 2001 because I had two boys to bring up and I had an offer from Newham Council in east London to become a gym manager in East Ham. I followed my instincts. When I founded NASSA as a charity, it was with just £20 in a bank account, but we are still going, and we have educated over 100,000 young people in east London on the dangers of knife since then through our Carry A Basketball Not A Blade (CABNAB) initiative. NASSA has given me so much meaning to my life, but I am so glad that I have re-found music.

To see ‘Angel Star’ recognised at the Eurasian Film Festival 2024 was so rewarding. And I was also sent a video of it being shown on a billboard in Times Square in New York in June 2024. That is truly crazy and such an honour.

OCA Magazine: What is the main feature that makes you and your art / work unique?
NH: I think it would have to be the inspiration that I find within because of my life experiences. I am sure many creative artists are the same. They are able to put their life into their art. My art is mine because my life is mine.
I have always tried to find a way to do something. It isn’t always easy and it would be so much easier to give up or not to try, but that isn’t me. And I appreciate everything that I do have and that I have experienced. To be able to express all of that through songs is a gift.

OCA Magazine: Tell us about the events or projects of the Eurasian Creative Guild (London) and projects that you have already taken part in and how does the ECG influence your creativity and success in your work?
NH: The ECG made me an Ambassador in 2023, which has been such an honour. I attend quarterly meetings and cultural events at which I have met the most extraordinary people, who have written autobiographies to tell their amazing life stories.

The ECG works internationally and I have been invited to places as far apart as Uzbekistan, Bulgaria, Poland, Armenia and the United States. Because of my commitment to NASSA, but more than that to the young people NASSA supports, I am not sure how many invitations I will be able to take up, but I feel very lucky just to have been asked.

I was also asked to be head judge at talent show events in east London where we had young people from all cultural backgrounds coming together to meet. It was wonderful to see the diversity and so many nationalities mixing together.

OCA Magazine: What is your motivation and the main aim of your creativity?
NH: I really enjoy turning thoughts into songs, writing about subjects within my own life. Being able to express feelings and emotions by writing songs has really helped me to come to terms with things that have happened in my life. As well as ‘Angel Star’ and ‘Thank You, Mother’, I have written songs about love and even one about basketball!

Songwriting is personal to me. I am not looking to inspire others through it, but if they enjoy my songs then that is a huge honour.

OCA Magazine: What would you wish for the members of the Guild and other creative people, just starting their career?
NH: Follow your dream. If you want to do it, then do it. I took over 20 years out from music. I chose a different route for a while – a long while – but I am so grateful to have it back in my life now.

I would also say that when you are creating art, do it for yourself, make it what you want it to be, not what you think others might like.
Thank you.