Morley's joins London Museum to help recruit DJ collective for weekly late openings

The Sound of London DJ Collective has been developed with the capital's chicken shop institution Morley's and with creative studio Hive Curates to program music for Friday and Saturday night openings running until 11pm at the museum's new permanent galleries.

Twelve emerging DJs will be selected from across London's boroughs, with the panel including guest judges from the city's music scene. Successful applicants will join a 12-month programme, performing roughly one paid set a month between November 2026 and November 2027. Recruitment runs across three stages, beginning with a written application due by 11:59pm on 14 August, after which fifty applicants progress to the next round.

The DJs will play in Our Time, a new social space in the Linbury Hall built inside the restored General Market, the Victorian building's former trading floor. From there, visitors can move down into the museum's underground galleries or stay upstairs at its restaurant, bar and cafe.

Dhikshana Turakhia Pering, the museum's Head of Creative Programmes, says that the collective was about bringing together "bold, original and community-minded DJs who reflect the richness of London's contemporary sound. Food and music have always gone hand in hand, bringing people together and telling the stories of a city."

The museum's wider partnership with Morley's, the south London chicken shop chain which celebrates 40 years in business this year, kicked off with the acquisition of the original red sign from the first Morley's in Sydenham. It will now sit in Our Time as part of an installation called Hanging Out, focused on the places where Londoners gather.

Rapper Krept referenced the chain in his track "Morley's Freestyle," and its shopfront appeared behind Stormzy in the video for "Big For Your Boots." The chain has also hosted Amelia Dimoldenberg's Chicken Shop Dates and featured in an episode of Black Mirror.

Shan Selvendran, Morley's chief executive, says that supporting young creatives has"always been... a defining part of Morley's story," and that backing the collective and the museum's new gathering spaces "made sense" as the brand builds on decades of local ties.

Sound system culture gets its own place in the space, with reggae DJ, MC and promoter Papa Face, whose career spans more than five decades across London's club scene, acting as a specialist advisor to the museum. He has helped shape one of thirteen large-scale installations planned for the ground floor of the General Market, built around the history of London's sound systems.

London Museum's Smithfield redevelopment covers two former market buildings and comes with a construction bill of £437m, funded through the City of London Corporation, the Mayor of London and a group of philanthropic backers including Bloomberg Philanthropies and the National Lottery Heritage Fund. The General Market opens on 28 November with the museum's permanent galleries, while the neighbouring Poultry Market, housing its learning centre and temporary exhibition space, follows in 2028.