Harlesden Walk of Music Celebrates Reggae Heritage
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 inaugurated in north-west London.
The Harlesden Walk of Music features commemorative discs that honour musicians, producers, and record shops that established the area as the reggae capital of the UK, tracing back to the arrival of the Windrush generation.
Inspired by the Hollywood Walk of Fame, the initiative was developed by the community group Harlesden Bassline in collaboration with Brent Council, supported by a £70,000 grant from the UK government's Shared Prosperity Fund.
The launch took place on International Reggae Day, 1 July, celebrating artists connected to the area such as Janet Kay, Aswad, General Levy, and The Cimarons.
Harlesden's Post-War Reggae Hub
Following World War Two, Harlesden became home to one of London's largest Jamaican communities. Organisers highlight that record shops and labels like Orbitone and Jet Star Records (originally Palmer Records) contributed to making Harlesden a centre for reggae, ska, dub, and lovers rock genres.
Cleon Roberts, co-founder of The Harlesden Walk of Music and Harlesden Bassline, is the daughter of Sonny Roberts, a Jamaican-born producer credited with establishing Britain's first black-owned recording studio, Planetone, in nearby Kilburn in 1961.
Sonny Roberts later operated the influential Orbitone record shop and label in Harlesden from 1970 until his return to Jamaica, where he passed away in 2021.
Cleon Roberts remarked on the challenges faced by her father's generation in building the industry from the ground up.
"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."
Voices from the Reggae Community
Roy Forbes-Allen of Hawkeye Records described Harlesden as "known as the UK reggae capital."
Tony Gad, a member of Aswad, emphasized the importance of the project in preserving 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 added:
"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."
Council Support and Community Response
Tina Amadi, Brent Council's cabinet member for communities and culture, stated the council's commitment to revitalising the high street.
"Our pledge is to put pride and investment back into the high street," she said.
"That means investing in the community, investing in the culturally rich heritage of Harlesden from our Afro-Caribbean community and our Brazilian communities," she added, also noting efforts to improve street safety.
Residents attending the launch expressed their support for the project, with one commenting:
"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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