A living archive
of Black British Caribbean memory

Ten years ago I interviewed my Jamaican grandmother over a glass of rum, prompted by a line from one of my poems: “I think we should start holding funerals for people before they die.” I wanted to celebrate my Nana while she was still here — and I realised that to celebrate her, I needed to truly know her. That interview became a theatre show: Likkle Rum with Grandma. A conversation, a gift, a celebration.

My Nana is not the only one who deserves to be celebrated. All our Black British Caribbean elders do.

LIKKLEArchive is an archival project dedicated to preserving and celebrating the stories, experiences and wisdom of Caribbean elders in Britain. It is a living creative archive where Black British Caribbean history is told by those who lived it, and reinterpreted by contemporary artists, poets and storytellers of the Caribbean diaspora for future generations.

We collect interviews as an act of cultural preservation and creative reclamation — ensuring that Caribbean voices in Britain are not lost, reduced or co-opted, but instead celebrated for their vibrance and complexity. Our focus is a living archive of feeling, memory and imagination. Not just facts. Not just struggle. But also the textures of Black British Caribbean life: its sounds, its humour, its faith, its everyday beauty.

LIKKLEArchive brings together oral storytelling, poetry and virtual reality immersion to answer one important question: how can immersive storytelling help us listen across generations and celebrate cultural memory?