Live Magazine's Robbie Wojciechowski talks about young people

As part of our youth focus, we headed to Brixton to talk to its music editor, Robbie Wojciechowski (or Robbie Flash to the internet), to talk about Live Magazine - a youth-run, youth-focused arts and culture magazine for under 24-year-olds. We wanted to find out more about Robbie's path from dropping out of college to Live magazine to writing for the Guardian, as well as whether he felt, post-riots, the youth are being represented better in the media. The voice of teenagers and young adults is important to us at Booktrust, which is why we cover so many teen and YA books. Also, to see young people writing such amazing content is inspiring for us. So, here he is... Robbie Wojciechowski...

What do you do?

I'm a college dropout. I didn't get on with education. I didn't feel like I was taught it in the right way. I didn't learn how I wanted to learn. I always wanted to learn for myself not just for a grade. It may sound naïve but when you're 16 years old and angry, you lash out - for me it was the education system. I started doing creative stuff when I was 15. I knew I wanted to work in music and I didn't see a route through from education so I went out and found a local band, asked if I could promote them, having a few contacts and that went fairly well. Found a few more acts. One of those acts was Rizzle Kicks. They did ridiculously well. I got a bit of a rep off the back of that and someone me a writing job off the back of that, doing music reviews. Then I found politics, through the student protests. My mind was completely blown. I saw revolution as something beautiful, as something inspiring. I want to inspire people, give them ideas they haven't even thought about.

At Live Magazine, I'm the music editor. I'm a freelance journalist for the Guardian, Independent, Dazed and Confused, Clash, Artrocker and various other places too. I also help Live out with social media and marketing campaigns.

What skills do you need?

Most of the skills that led me to this path, I learnt myself. Stuff like graphics, web developing, how to use the internet properly - I learnt all these things myself. I had the knowledge of English in my mind, fact-based knowledge and I was always good at history. That helped me to analytically put facts and details together. I developed all these skills through a lot of practice and a lot of mentoring. I had people teaching me how to be more concise, how to make my words have more of an impact. I had a lot of mentors like Emma Warren and Steve Yates looking over my shoulder and showing me how to make things better. They taught me the discipline I fell in love with - having a way with the written word.

Which one was the most important?

Learn that everything is possible. You're just yet to find that path or realise it's there. Because it is. You can do whatever you want to do. You don't need a university grade to make you successful. There are other ways to be successful.

A year on from the riots, have attitudes to young people changed?

People definitely want more of a voice from young people. They're definitely more intrigued. People seem like they're actively engaging with young people and want to help their community more. It almost feels like a social responsibility for people now they've seen what happened out on the streets. A lot of people at Live have been given a voice in places like Metro through the riots. They wouldn't have had that before. I got published in the Guardian because of the riots. They wouldn't have wanted my voice in there otherwise as a young person. I think a lot of good things have come out of it and I don't think people look at it like that.

Follow Robbie on Twitter