Flo Headlam

Music has been an integral part of my life from an early age. I played piano from the age of 8 for seven years, tap danced at primary school, and completely fell in love with music as a teenager. I have my older brothers to thank for my introduction to reggae and jazz. Those two genres gave me a good foundation for the music of the African diaspora that I grew to love and perform from my early twenties.

I have played in a samba and a samba reggae group in London, written songs for a fusion band in my mid-20s, sung in a community gospel choir in my 30s, played in a London djembe orchestra in the mid-1990s, and played West African drum music and studied and danced African choreography for 20 years. I would say life without music is not possible, or just plain miserable. It’s a life force.