The Music is Black: V&A East's Landmark Exhibition Redefines British Musical History

V&A East Museum will open its doors on 18 April 2026 with The Music is Black: A British Story, an inaugural exhibition that traces 125 years of black musical innovation in Britain. Running until 3 January 2027, this multisensory show explores the profound impact of Black artistry on British music and culture through over 200 objects spanning fashion, photography, musical instruments, and personal writings.

The exhibition is divided into four acts. Act 1: Origins of Music, traces the African foundations of Black music and how Black expression travelled through years of enslavement to inspire the genres that would later arrive in Britain. Act 2: 'Great' Britain: 1900-1969 explores how Black music flourished amidst migration and technological change. Act 3: British-Born Black Music reveals how uniquely British genres began to emerge, from lovers rock to grime. The exhibition concludes with Act 4: The British Sound Of, looking at Black British music today and its future across genres spanning the likes of pop and dubstep, and gospel and jazz.

Sam White, Skepta and Jammer, Run the Road, Fabric, 2005. Image Credit: Sam White, V&A East Museum

The exhibition traces a history of technological experimentation in Black British music, where innovation has often emerged from unexpected tools and spaces. Musical batons from the early 1900s which belonged to classical composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who was commissioned to compose music for the first Pan-African Conference in 1900, are displayed. A piano belonging to Winifred Atwell, the first Black artist to have a number one hit in the UK Singles Chart in 1954, sits alongside Joan Armatrading's childhood guitar that sparked her love of music. These objects trace a continuity of innovation across more than a century, each representing a moment when an artist carved out space in a cultural landscape that often excluded them.

Winifred Atwell’s ‘other’ piano, unrecorded date. Made by Chappell Pianos. Object courtesy of Sir Richard Stilgoe. Image Credit: V&A, London

Donated by Joan Armatrading, Acoustic guitar, 1964 (purchased). Image Credit: V&A London

This technological experimentation continues through the exhibition's contemporary objects. Jme's Super Nintendo and Mario Paint game, which he used for his first experiments with music-making in the 1990s before founding grime collective and record label Boy Better Know with his brother Skepta, have been at the forefront of sonic experimentation with emerging technology. Personal items belonging to DJs and producers such as DJ Target go on display, alongside objects connected to Jammer's Lord of the Mics, created with Chad 'Ratty' Stennett, which changed the trajectory for many MCs. These acquisitions sit among over 60 objects being added to the V&A collection for the first time, including Eddie Otchere's vivid photographs of drum & bass duo Kemistry and Storm and the jacket that rapper and actor Nolay wore when filming Top Boy.

Eddie Otchere, Kemistry and Storm (The Diptych), 1995. Image Credit: Eddie Otchere, V&A East Museum

Visual identity has been equally important to this story. Dame Shirley Bassey's striking dress worn to perform 'Goldfinger' at the 85th Academy Awards in 2013 appears alongside the Comme des Garçons ensemble worn by rapper Little Simz for Dazed in 2023. Ensembles worn by music-making pioneers from Carroll Thompson to Janet Kay MBE, to Sade, document how Black British artists have used fashion to amplify their sonic innovations, creating complete artistic statements that extended beyond sound alone.

The exhibition also features specially commissioned new works by Sir Frank Bowling and LR Vandy, unveiled for the first time, alongside artworks by the likes of Dame Sonia Boyce, and Sir Frank Bowling. These visual responses create dialogue between different forms of Black British artistic expression, reinforcing that music has always existed within a broader cultural ecosystem.

Sir Frank Bowling, Green Across, 2025. All Rights Reserved, DACS 2025. Image Credit: Anna Arca, V&A East Museum. Courtesy of Sir Frank Bowling

Jacqueline Springer, Curator of The Music Is Black: A British Story and Curator of Africa and Diaspora Performance at the V&A, frames the exhibition around music's emotional and memorial functions. "Music reflects and feeds emotions. It inspires, comforts, offends and entertains. It also awakens memory and punctuates our present," she says. "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."

Gus Casely-Hayford, V&A East Director, notes the significance of mounting this exhibition in east London, home to the creation of some of the most exciting musical genres and performances. "This is an important story, not just for Britain and British music, but for Black artistry globally," he says.

BBC Music has partnered with V&A East on the exhibition, providing access to archival materials and releasing a season of content across its channels. In summer 2026, The Music is Black Festival will take place in collaboration with East Bank partners, including the BBC, Sadlers Wells East, UAL's London College of Fashion, and UCL East. The festival will include a series of performances, displays and live events across Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park and beyond.

The Music is Black: A British Story arrives at a moment when conversations about whose stories get told have never been more urgent. This exhibition presents Black British music as central to understanding British modernity itself, fundamentally challenging how we understand cultural history and who gets to shape that understanding going forward.