Music That Made Me Panel Discussion

Join authors Lloyd Bradley, Dan Hancox and Emma Warren for an in‑conversation panel exploring how music shaped their formative years and creative paths. Through stories and shared listening, they’ll reflect on music as a powerful tool for storytelling and self‑expression.

Lloyd Bradley is one of the UK’s foremost black music experts and a seasoned cultural commentator both in print and in person. His book Bass Culture: When Reggae Was King (Penguin) remains the world’s best-selling book on Jamaican music and culture; the internationally acclaimed Sounds Like London: 100 Years of Black Music in the Capital (Serpents Tail) is the first and only to explore Britain’s modern black music as one continuous thread; he co-authored Ian Wright: A Life In Football (Little Brown), positioning the Arsenal legend firmly in context as a contemporary black icon. This year sees the publication of the third in his black music trilogy, Funk Is Its Own Reward (Little Brown) – American black music from 1968 to 1979 – which, as with its predecessors, reconnects the music to the culture that created it.

Dan Hancox is a writer and editor from south London, interested in grassroots culture, radical politics, cities, crowds, riots, social history, food, gentrification and proper binmen, working mostly for The Guardian. He is co-host of the Cursed Objects podcast, and author of three books: The Village Against the World, Inner City Pressure and Multitudes.

Emma Warren has been documenting grassroots music and culture for decades. Her latest book Up the Youth Club was published by Faber last year. She is also the author of Dance Your Way Home (Faber, 2023), which was a Sunday Times book of the week, a Guardian book of the year, and formed the basis of the Southbank Centre’s 2025 summer season. Other works include Steam Down: Or How Things Begin (Rough Trade Books, 2019), which was an Irish Times read of the year. Make Some Space and Document Your Culture were published on her own Sweet Machine imprint. The British-Irish dual national and south east Londoner worked as a journalist on magazines including The Face, and as a mentor at youth-run Brixton publication Live. She currently runs a weekly writer’s programme at Woolwich Creative Club, a free after-school music project for 9-16 year olds. Her radio show on Worldwide FM ran for six years

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