Jun 2: The Music is Black

As featured on 'The One Show' earlier today.

A new exhibition at V&A East which I shall have to try to get to befor the end of the year.

Details here.

From the exhibition guide.

Music reflects and feeds emotions. It inspires, comforts, offends and entertains. Music awakens memory and punctuates our present. The Music is Black: A British Story traces the roots and routes of music that has descended from African musical practices and gone on to influence and transform British identity over the past 125 years. It explores where Black music in Britain since 1900 has come from - tracking an ever-evolving sound shaped by British colonialism, transatlantic enslavement and voluntary migration. From lovers rock and Brit funk, to 2 Tone, jungle and grime, this exhibition reveals the creation of British­born Black music genres and how they have impacted lives across the country and beyond - how we speak, dress and view the world. The Music is Black is a story of Black struggle, resilience, creativity and joy. It is a story of us all.

Someone has made a playlist on Spotify.

Here's Channel 4 news.

Feb 8: V&A: The Music is Black

The latest V&A development finally opens in April 2026, and alongside the permanent exhibition spaces, there is a temporary exhibition space.

The first exhibition will be about Black British Music.

Here's a trailer:

And a description from a while back:

The Music Is Black: A British Story will span from 1900 to the present day, celebrating everyone from pioneers such as Winifred Atwell and Janet Kay to today’s generation including Stormzy and Little Simz, and explore how artists from Fleetwood Mac to the Beatles adopted elements of the music created by the UK’s Black community.

Drawing on BBC archives, photographs, artefacts, ornaments, paintings, prints, playbills, film and more, the curators promise “immersive AV and large-scale installations” where attenders can walk through different eras and experience multi-sensory modes of storytelling.

The Music is Black: A British Story will look into how migration has influenced music, including how the Windrush movement brought a wave of new sounds from the Caribbean to the UK, birthing the sound system culture which informed the massively successful British clubbing scene and beyond. It will also look at how influences from Black communities in the global south are being heavily featured in today’s chart toppers – such as west African highlife in pop songs, and drum patterns stemming from Caribbean reggae in dance music.