V&A East Museum announces first landmark exhibition, The Music is Black: A British Story

Curated by Jacqueline Springer, Curator of African and Diaspora Performance at the V&A, The Music is Black: A British Story is a multi-sensory exhibition that looks back over 125 years of Black British music and its impact on British music and culture, tracing the development of Black British-born genres, including lovers rock and Brit funk, to 2 tone, jungle, drum & bass, trip hop, UK garage, grime, and more.

The exhibition will be divided into four different acts, featuring over 200 objects from 1900 to today fashion, photography, musical instruments and technology, personal writings, song sheets, sculpture, paintings, and more, with 60 items being new additions to the V&A collection. Some of the objects on display will include the Comme des Garçons ensemble worn by Little Simz for a Dazed shoot in 2023, Joan Armatrading’s childhood guitar, Eddie Otchere’s vivid photographs of drum & bass duo Kemistry and Storm, among multiple other personal belongings from music-makers that will be available to view for the first time.

Speaking about the upcoming exhibition, Springer says: “Music reflects and feeds emotions. It inspires, comforts, offends and entertains. It also awakens memory and punctuates our present. This exhibition provides another dimension in our celebration and understanding of how social and political histories are responded to by people and their cultures to provide the art we all enjoy. This exhibition speaks to modernity and long deep histories; of the legacies of identity and to the music that furnishes our collective and individual memories. We hope that visitors will emerge with a broader appreciation of Black British music makers, the enormous influence of Black musicality – internationally and domestically – and the legacy of the influence of the African diaspora.”