GLAM Racket: Camden and Brent

11:30 am - 12 pm, Monday, 25th May 2026

A Micro Clear Spot on Resonance 104.4 FM - a short-form works for radio.

For further information about those featured today, visit Harlesden Bassline Instagram, Brent Museum and Archives, and Camden Libraries and Local Studies.

GLAM Racket: Camden and Brent offers a sonic glimpse into community storytelling, reggae heritage, and creative expression through voices, performances, and recordings gathered across Camden and Harlesden. Moving between Harlesden, Camden libraries, and live public events, the programme traces how music, memory, and collective creativity continue to shape local cultural life.

From the streets of Harlesden, we hear from Janet Kay, honoured by Harlesden Bassline for her lasting contribution to British reggae culture. Born in Willesden, Janet Kay became one of the defining voices of lovers’ rock after the release of Silly Games in 1979, a landmark recording that helped establish a distinctly British reggae sound. In the programme, reflections on Harlesden’s musical history sit alongside the wider work of Harlesden Bassline, whose projects celebrate the area’s role in shaping sound system culture, reggae, and Black British cultural history.

The episode also visits writing groups and libraries across Camden, featuring recordings from a live reading event at Swiss Cottage Library led by Kit Slatford. The event explored storytelling, translation, memory, and collaborative writing practices developed through community workshops in local libraries. Voices include Cynthia Cao, who reads an original story in Mandarin; Sheryl Sze, who reads a direct English translation; and Kit Slatford, presenting a transcreated interpretation developed through generative AI prompts. Poet Adam Khan also contributes a reading developed through a co-creative writing group at Holborn Library.

GLAM Racket aims to present Galleries, Libraries, Archives and Museums, not simply as civic buildings, but as shared cultural spaces where language, heritage, oral history, and artistic experimentation meet. Through music walks, poetry readings, conversations, and multilingual storytelling, the programme captures fleeting moments of how communities continue to collectively create and preserve culture.