#chaudhury

Universal Music Group commissioned us to explore how the creative industries (and beyond) can adapt themselves to better accommodate staff with neurodivergent conditions, and generally make better use of this talent pool.

It was a real privilege to be part of the team to conduct and deliver this important and necessary work.

Kieran Yates is both a prolific documenter of youth culture and an authority on the subject. She’s the former Senior Contributing Music Editor at DAZED, co-author of Generation Vexed, producer of Muslim Drag Queens and the founder and editor of British Values — a satirical fanzine illuminating the immigrant experience in the UK.

I spoke to Kieran to get her perspective on creative responses to cultural shifts, the formative forces of British youth culture today, and the dual-cultured voices challenging the status quo.

In an age of real uncertainty, we’ve witnessed the arrival of a new kind of deity for many young people. A guiding light that has captured imaginations, garnering a million-strong follower count in the process. His powerful proclamations and sage advice are being spread around the world, and amplified by his many acolytes. A largely anonymous figure before he started populating his Snapchat story, his global reach is now instant and his influence messianic. Like many, I’d initially dismissed him and his unique form of rhetoric.

That was, until the day his recently published scripture was in my hands. Illuminated in gold lettering, The Keys has been an insight into this man’s devotion and passions. So too, understanding how this 40-something year old, unlikely icon has been so effective in communicating to his beloved ‘young world’.

When Cassidy Baillie isn’t studying Radio and Digital Media at uni, he’s making it. He holds a regular slot on Radar Radio while also producing for BBC Radio 1, 1Xtra and Reprezent FM. If that didn’t keep him busy enough, he also produces his own music under the alias CassKidd, and holds a guest slot on a range of other stations. Within the world of youth targeting British radio, there are few people like Cassidy who possess as much knowledge or such a wide breadth of experience within, and knowledge of, the scene.

After an hour on London Underground, I finally step on to platform five of Barking Station and head towards the stairs, contemplating my final thirty minute leg on the bus home to Dagenham. As with every weeknight commute back, there are hundreds of people kettled against the ticket barriers and hundreds more outside awaiting our nightly physical compromise to board the bus.

In the shadow of mounting Asian hulks India and China, Bangladesh strives now more than ever to catch up and shake off the soothsaying of past; ‘the place is and always will be a basket case’ - Henry Kissinger