Cleon Roberts shows Reporter Alice Bhandukravi the plaque dedicated to music pioneer Sonny Roberts
Cleon Roberts shows Reporter Alice Bhandukravi the plaque dedicated to music pioneer Sonny Roberts
A walk of fame celebrating Harlesden’s reggae heritage has been launched in north-west London.
The Harlesden Walk of Music’s commemorative discs pay homage to musicians, producers and record shops that made the area the reggae capital of the UK, from the arrival of the Windrush generation onwards.
Inspired by the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the project was created by community group Harlesden Bassline in partnership with Brent Council, using £70,000 of funding from the government’s UK Shared Prosperity Fund.
It launched on International Reggae Day, 1 July, honouring artists with links to the area including Janet Kay, Aswad, General Levy, and The Cimarons.
Harlesden became a hub for reggae in the post-war years
Harlesden became a hub for reggae in the post-war years
Harlesden became home to one of London’s largest Jamaican communities after World War Two, and organisers say record shops and labels such as Orbitone and Jet Star Records, originally Palmer Records, made it a hub for reggae, ska, dub and lovers rock.
Cleon Roberts, co-founder of The Harlesden Walk of Music and Harlesden Bassline, is the daughter of Sonny Roberts, the Jamaican-born producer credited with opening Britain’s first black-owned recording studio, Planetone, in nearby Kilburn in 1961.
Cleon Roberts is the co-founder of the Walk of Music and daughter of Sonny Roberts
Cleon Roberts is the co-founder of the Walk of Music and daughter of Sonny Roberts
He went on to run the influential Orbitone record shop and label in Harlesden from 1970 until returning to Jamaica, where he died in 2021.
She said her father’s generation had to build the industry from scratch.
“There was nowhere for musicians to record, black musicians from the Caribbean, and they were coming over,” she said.
“There was loads of them in the Windrush era.”
Roy Forbes-Allen of Hawkeye Records said Harlesden was “known as the UK reggae capital”
Roy Forbes-Allen of Hawkeye Records said Harlesden was “known as the UK reggae capital”
Tony Gad, of Aswad, said the project would preserve the music’s history for future generations.
“In the early days there wasn’t many things like this to document what was going on,” he said.
“When we grew up, we never had no YouTube, we never had no social media. Everything that we knew, we were looking in books. So these things are important.”
Roy Forbes-Allen, of the Harlesden reggae label Hawkeye Records, said: “Harlesden is known as the UK reggae capital, so we have many legends and I’m hoping that we will commemorate many more.
“The history needs to be told.”
Tina Amadi, Brent Council’s cabinet member for communities and culture, said the council’s pledge was “to put pride and investment back into the high street”.
She said that meant “investing in the community, investing in the culturally rich heritage of Harlesden from our Afro-Caribbean community and our Brazilian communities”, as well as making streets safer.
Residents at the launch welcomed the project, with one saying: “It’s like a Hollywood strip but we have it down here, and people should appreciate what comes from little old Harlesden.”
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