Join Aniefiok Ekpoudom and Caleb Azumah Nelson as they chat about the music, stories and legacies in Where We Come From: Rap, Home & Hope in Modern Britain.

This music was not only music, and these musicians not only musicians: they were emblems of hope for communities right across Britain. They were spokespeople fro the silenced, carrying their stories out into the light.

Vividly depicted and compassionately told, Where We Come From weaves together intimate stories of resilience, courage and loss, as well as a shared music culture that gave refuge and purpose to those in search of belonging. Aniefiok Ekpoudom travels the length of the country and paints a compelling portrait of the dawn, boom, and subsequent blossoming of UK rap and grime music, and in the process offers a rich chronicle of place, identity and, above all, the social and human conditions in modern Britain.

About our guests:

Aniefiok “Neef” Ekpoudom is a writer and storyteller from South London whose work documents community and culture in contemporary Britain. Aniefiok’s writing has featured in a number of essay collections and anthologies, including #Merky Books titles Keisha The Sket (2021) and A New Formation: How Black Players Shaped The Modern Game (2022), as well as SAFE: On Black British Men Reclaiming Space (Trapeze, 2019). Aniefiok was named on the Forbes’ 30 Under 30 List for Media & Marketing. He is a British Journalism Award winner for his work with The Guardian. He has also been named Culture Writer of the Year at the Freelance Writing Awards.

Caleb Azumah Nelson is a British-Ghanaian writer, photographer and filmmaker living in South East London. His first novel, Open Water, won the Costa First Novel Award and Debut of the Year at the British Book Awards, and was a number-one Times bestseller. His second novel, Sunday Times Bestseller Small Worlds, is out now.