Rock out for a good cause with a super heavy event happening in Colombo at the end of May.
Hope Out Loud is a fundraiser concert for the Indira Cancer Trust taking place on May 31 at the Women’s International Club.
Organised by Good Loud Media and Veteran Musician Misha Wickramanayake, The show will feature big names in Sri Lankan Rock – Stigmata, Whirlwind, Genocide Shrines, Trishith and Shehara with guest performance by Dillion Manuel.
The concert will also include solo acts by Ashen Sandaru, Kavin Harshana and newcomers Uvindu and Nabeel.
A show with a purpose
Misha and the team have been working hard for the past two months to make sure the concert goes without a hitch. “This marks our first benefit concert in quite some time, and it has been a truly transformative experience. Bringing together a unique lineup of artists, along with the support of an incredible group of collaborators and volunteers, has made this journey both inspiring and deeply meaningful,” he said.
2025 has been a great year for Sri Lankan arts with box office breaking films and exciting new music. We asked Misha where Hope Out Loud fits in.
“The concert fits seamlessly into the itinerary as it brings together some of the most active and influential talent in the industry, united on one stage for a truly meaningful cause. This kind of lineup is a rare sight—each artist and band brings fresh content, debuting new material live alongside their beloved classics. More significantly, the event serves as a powerful showcase of the core talent represented by Good Loud Media. As the label’s debut concert in Sri Lanka, it marks the beginning of an exciting new chapter with immense potential for growth.
Jed Brewer
That vision led to collaboration with Good Loud Media to create something truly unique. More importantly, we wanted to shine a spotlight on a label that has played a crucial role in helping Sri Lankan artists like us reach international platforms. This concert is our way of giving back to the team that has supported our journey and dreams.
Whirlwind at 30
Whirlwind will be marking three decades this year and Misha said the band wanted to celebrate in meaningful and different way. “This concert is our way of giving back to the team that has supported our journey and dreams. Jed and I began discussions around the creative direction, and it was his idea to take the project even further—transforming it into a larger initiative that could also give back to the wider community. After considering several organisations, we felt that Indira Cancer Trust was the most fitting partner. Their mission to support children battling cancer resonated deeply with all of us, making this collaboration both personal and purposeful”.
It has been a while since Stigmata and Whirlwind rocked on the same stage. When asked Misha how he felt about that, he said, “Absolutely—it’s a truly special occasion, and we’re deeply grateful to Jed and the team for bringing this incredible lineup together. Personally, I believe that bands like ours, who have been keeping the spirit of the industry alive for years, should collaborate more often”.
Good Loud Media and Jed Brewer
Good Loud Media is a non-profit creating music and media for public health needs and at-risk communities. Jed Brewer of Good Loud Media when asked how he felt on working with Sri Lankan artists, said, “Good Loud Media has been very fortunate to be a part of producing and releasing recordings from many Sri Lankan artists, in styles ranging from Sinhalese folk to EDM to extreme metal. These recordings have been heard on FM music radio around the world, have scored hundreds of thousands of plays online, and have featured the talents of Grammy-winning engineers and platinum-selling producers.”
Misha
Wickramanayake
“In my experience, the majority of Sri Lankan musical artists are interested in more than producing entertainment. They want to create actual art – that is, they want to speak to the human condition and cultivate a space for the honest discussion of what it means to live in an often-challenging world. Musically, they are prepared to take creative chances and pair important lyrical themes with bold sonic exploration. And all this is tempered by a desire for a listener to be able to connect and appreciate the artwork. That combination is very rare and very powerful.”
Global South sounds
“The first musical superstar from the developing world was the late-great Bob Marley. When asked whether he sees a lot of talent emerging from the Global South, he said, “To be honest, I am blown away by the overwhelming amount of talent that is present in the Global South right now. But we should first take a look at the past to predict the future.”
The music and media landscape today is very different than it once was. For example, in the 1980’s and 1990’s, Brazil (generally considered to be a part of the Global South) contributed heavy metal superstars Sepultura to the world. They created amazing, innovative music, but did so at a time when relatively few bands could make a recording, and very few could make a great sounding record. Sepultura’s commercial success relied on their incredible musical talent and the market realities of the period.
By contrast, today, anyone with a phone can record music. And great-sounding records – while never easy to make – are achievable by far more artists than 30 years ago. But, at the same time, the volume of music accessible to listeners has increased exponentially. To that point, more than 100,000 new songs are uploaded to Spotify every single day.
To me, the real question is this: who is telling my story in musical form? Who is describing my hopes, my fears, my heartache? There are approximately eight billion people on Earth, and more than six billion of them live in the Global South. So, are 75 percent of top artists being drawn from those regions?
To paraphrase Solzhenitsyn: “How can a person who’s warm understand – and make music for – a person who’s freezing cold?”
On a personal level, I grew up in the rural South of the United States, a region famous for poverty and lack of opportunity. And when I listen to country music (our musical cultural expression), it’s pretty clear who has been a poor farm boy, and who hasn’t. Artists with authentic lived experience know how to speak to struggle in a way others cannot. They are uniquely qualified to sing – as Bob Marley put it – these songs of freedom, these redemption songs.
With so many conflicts in the world right now, how can music bring people together? We asked.
“Artists – musicians very much included – speak with a prophetic voice. That is, they envision and describe a world that does not yet exist, but that could. They help believe that a different world – a better world – is possible. And this is essential; almost no one will work to build a world that they can’t envision and don’t believe could ever come to pass.
Music gives us a place to speak about the pains that we are facing today, and about the hopes that we believe are possible tomorrow. And when we communicate our hopes and our hurts, we almost always find that we have far more in common than we would have guessed. As the old saying has it, we discover that what unites us is far greater than what separates us”.
