Exhibition – The Music is Black: A British Story (V&A East, London)

Exhibition, V&A East, London, 18th April 2026 – 3rd January 2027
The Music is Black: A British Story

Header Image: Inside V&A East Museum’s inaugural exhibition
The Music is Black: A British Story.
© David Parry for the V&A.

Exciting to see news of V&A East Museum’s first exhibition, The Music is Black: A British Story, celebrating the voices, talent and stories of Black British music and its global impact. Open now until early 2027, this project reflects a huge range of talent and influence from past and current artists – more details below.

The exhibition brings together hidden stories of early legends and contemporary artists through objects from groundbreaking musician Winifred Atwell’s piano to the Nintendo Jme used for early music experiments, fashion worn by Little Simz, Seal, Dame Shirley Bassey and Skin and newly acquired photographs of Kemistry and Storm, Mis-T eeq, and Skepta.

V&A East Museum team prepares Winifred Atwell’s piano.
Inside V&A East Museum’s inaugural exhibition The Music is Black: A British Story.
© Adama Jalloh for the V&A.

This multisensory exhibition explores the profound impact of Black artistry on British music, culture and beyond. The Music is Black: A British Story traces the roots of music descended from African musical practices that have influenced and transformed British identity over the past 125 years. Tracing an ever-evolving sound shaped by British colonialism, transatlantic enslavement, migration and innovation, this exhibition is a celebration of resilience, creativity and joy. It reveals how British-born Black music genres – from lovers rock and Brit funk, to 2 tone, jungle, drum & bass, trip hop, UK garage, grime and beyond have inspired and impacted lives across the UK and around the world.

Inside V&A East Museum’s inaugural exhibition The Music is Black: A British Story.
© David Parry for the V&A.

Divided into four powerful acts, the exhibition brings together an evocative sound experience and multimedia installations with over 200 objects from 1900 to today. Spanning fashion, photography, musical instruments and technology, personal writings, song sheets, sculpture, paintings and more, objects include over 60 newly acquired items to the V&A collection. New acquisitions on display for the first time include clothing worn by Seal for his eponymous 1991 debut album, Eddie Otchere’s vivid photographs of drum & bass duo Kemistry and Storm, Joan Armatrading’s childhood guitar that sparked her love of music, and the jacket that rapper and actor Nolay wore when filming Top Boy. For the first time, a series of personal items belonging to music-makers, DJs and producers, such as DJ Target, and those connected to Jammer’s Lord of the Mics created with Chad ‘Ratty’ Stennett, which changed the trajectory for many MCs, go on display. Revealed for the first time is 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 (BBE) with his brother Skepta.

Inside V&A East Museum’s inaugural exhibition The Music is Black: A British Story.
© David Parry for the V&A.

The exhibition includes iconic fashion, from the striking dress worn in 2013 by Dame Shirley Bassey to perform ‘Goldfinger’ at the 85th Academy Awards, celebrating 50 years of the James Bond film franchise, to the Comme des Garçons ensemble worn by rapper Little Simz for British magazine Dazed in 2023, and a provocative green suit and spiked headpiece worn by singer-songwriter Skin – the first Black woman to headline Glastonbury in 1999. Also on show are ensembles worn by music-making pioneers from Carroll Thompson to Janet Kay MBE, Pauline Black, Sade, and Morcheeba’s Skye Edwards. Visitors can also delve into hidden stories of musical figures across time through objects such as musical batons from the early 1900s belonging to classical composer Samuel Coleridge-Taylor, who was commissioned to compose music for the first Pan-African Conference in 1900. A piano belonging to Winifred Atwell, the first Black artist to have a number one hit in the UK Singles Chart in 1954 is also on show, along with works of American icons who influenced Black British music-making including Sister Rosetta Tharpe and Big Mama Thornton. Artworks by Dame Sonia Boyce, Olayinka Burney-Nicol, Sokari Douglas Camp CBE, Denzil Forrester, Fowokan George Kelly, Tam Joseph, Vicky Lindo and Bill Brookes, and Zak Ové bring the exhibition further to life, including specially commissioned new works by Sir Frank Bowling and LR Vandy, unveiled for the first time.