V&A East announces ‘The Music Is Black: A British Story’, its first major exhibition
London’s V&A East to examine the cultural impact of Black British music with its inaugural exhibition in 2025
![The band Hi-Tension from V&A East exhibition on Black British music](https://cdn.mos.cms.futurecdn.net/UBAuvnaiRRQxUk7Ay2NWKA-415-80.jpg)
A deep dive into Black British music is set to be the focus for V&A East, which has announced its inaugural exhibition. ‘The Music Is Black: A British Story’, due to open in 2025 at the museum, at East Bank at Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park, is being produced in collaboration with the BBC, Sadlers Wells East, UAL’s London College of Fashion, and UCL East, and promises an immersive look into 125 years of Black music.
Genres from jazz to reggae, two-tone, drum & bass, trip hop, UK garage and grime will be explored, alongside early adopters including Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, Winifred Atwell and Emile Ford through to more established artists such as Joan Armatrading, Eddy Grant, Sade, Soul II Soul, Seal, Fabio & Grooverider, Goldie, Massive Attack and Tricky. Today’s artists, from Ezra Collective to Nubya Garcia, Shabaka Hutchings, Kano, Little Simz and Jorja Smith, will also be included.
The impact of Black British music explored
Chelone Wolf, ‘Fabio and Grooverider’
As well as focusing on the artists, the exhibition will consider the role Black music has played in defining British culture, placing it in a social and historical context. Says the show’s curator Jacqueline Springer, curator of Africa and Diaspora Performance at the V&A: ‘Music is the soundtrack to our lives, and one of the most powerful tools of unification. It brings collective and individual joy as we recite song lyrics at festivals and gigs, recall dance moves perfected in childhood bedrooms, and mime to guitar breaks, bassline drops and instrumental flourishes with glee.'
Jennie Baptiste, ‘Estelle & Ty’, Brixton, London, 2003
'Set against a backdrop of British colonialism and evolving social, political, and cultural landscapes, we will celebrate the richness and versatility of Black and Black British music as instruments of protest, affirmation, and creativity, and reveal the untold stories behind some of the world’s most popular music of all time,' she adds.
‘The Music Is Black: A British Story’ opens at V&A East Museum, London, in 2025. Meanwhile, the British Library in London is also celebrating the genre with ‘Beyond the Bassline: 500 Years of Black British Music’, 26 April – 26 August 2024.
Adrian Boot, ‘Tricky’, 2006
© Adrian Boot, urbanimage.tv
Adrian Boot, ‘Linton Kwesi Johnson and Darkus Howe at the Race Today office on Railton Road Brixton’, 1979
© Adrian Boot, urbanimage.tv
Wallpaper* Newsletter + Free Download
For a free digital copy of August Wallpaper*, celebrating Creative America, sign up today to receive our daily digest of inspiration, escapism and design stories
Hannah Silver is the Art, Culture, Watches & Jewellery Editor of Wallpaper*. Since joining in 2019, she has overseen offbeat design trends and in-depth profiles, and written extensively across the worlds of culture and luxury. She enjoys meeting artists and designers, viewing exhibitions and conducting interviews on her frequent travels.
-
Postcard from Paris: Olympic fever takes over the streets
On the eve of the opening ceremony of Paris 2024, our correspondent shares her views from the streets of the capital about how the event is impacting the urban landscape.
By Minako Norimatsu Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Tour the Natural History Museum’s new gardens, a Jurassic lark in London
The Natural History Museum in London has unveiled two new gardens, with resident dinosaurs, after a transformation led by architects Feilden Fowles
By Bridget Downing Published
-
The Mercury Prize nominees for 2024 have been revealed
Charli XCX, The Last Dinner Party and Beth Gibbons are amongst this year's nominees
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
Francis Alÿs plots child play around the world at the Barbican
In Francis Alÿs' exhibition ‘Ricochets’ at London’s Barbican, the artist explores the universality of play, even in challenging situations
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
The story behind Arcadia’s mechanical dragonfly: a Falklands helicopter turned dance stage and Glastonbury’s newest addition
At this year’s Glastonbury festival, its newest addition celebrated the earth and the bringing together of people – as well as putting on one hell of a party. Wallpaper* was invited for a tour.
By Charlotte Gunn Published
-
At Glastonbury’s Shangri-La, activism and innovation meet
Glastonbury’s south-east corner is known for its after-dark entertainment but by day, there is a different story to tell
By Rhian Daly Published
-
‘I am almost an anti-sculptor’: Dominique White on her Whitechapel Max Mara Art Prize show
The artist mines the ocean to explore Afrofuturism in ‘Deadweight’, opening at London’s Whitechapel and detailed in a new film
By Amah-Rose Abrams Published
-
Remembering Rusty Egan's Blitz Club: a place to 'avoid the mob and the homophobes', where the New Romantics were born
As he releases new vinyl boxset, 'Blitzed!', Wallpaper* meets DJ Rusty Egan to talk about London's scene-building Blitz club – the antidote to the late 70s punk scene and a hot-bed of experimental fashion
By Craig McLean Published
-
The body, pleasure and play: Beryl Cook and Tom of Finland united in London
Tom of Finland’s homoeroticism meets Beryl Cook’s female-oriented camp as Studio Voltaire unites work by the two artists in a London exhibition
By Hannah Silver Published
-
Zanele Muholi celebrates South Africa’s Black LGBTI communities in LA and London
Zanele Muholi's portraits and sculptures are currently on show at Southern Guild Los Angeles and the Tate Modern, London
By Hannah Silver Published