From jazz to calypso, dub poetry to UK drill lyrics, drum’n’bass raves to grime freestyles, the brilliance and cross-cultural richness of Black British music will be the focus for the inaugural exhibition at the V&A’s new outpost in east London. (the Guardian)
Opening in 2025, 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.
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V&A East is a new branch of the V&A made up of two venues: V&A East Museum, where this exhibition will be held, and the V&A East Storehouse a 10-minute walk away, which will house the V&A’s archive and exhibit highlights in its collection hall space.
The new building whose design was inspired in part by a Johannes Vermeer painting and X-rays of a Balenciaga gown, is part of the £1.1bn East Bank cultural quarter in Stratford, east London, on the border of the Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park. The development will also feature Sadler’s Wells East, campuses for London College of Fashion and UCL, and BBC Music studios – each of these institutions will collaborate on events and displays for The Music is Black: A British Story.
