London exhibition celebrates 100 years of black British music

BBC News

10-03-2025

An exhibition celebrating 100 years of black British music aims to "empower" the ethnic communities it originates from. Black Sound London at the Barbican Music Library charts the music's journey from flourishing underground to emerging on to the main stage.It starts with the arrival of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra in London from the United States in 1919 and continues through to Fuse ODG's afrobeat answer to 'Do They Know It's Christmas?' more than a century later.The City of London-owned library will also offer people who have a memory of the capital's black music scene an opportunity to share their story and have it saved for future generations.
This will be part of two special "heritage collection days" during which people will be able to be interviewed and have an item related to their memory 3D scanned.Scott Leonard, who has curated the exhibition with author Lloyd Bradley, said: "Too often in this country, black cultural heritage is packaged presented to the people by those that weren't there, so this type of exhibition at Barbican Music Library and the 'heritage collecting' days reverse the lens."They enable and empower the British black music community to tell their stories of what it was, and what it meant to them, because they must be captured and preserved before these stories disappear forever."
Mr Leonard said the exhibition showed how the genres may have changed "but the culture and process didn't"."So Lord Kitchener, Eddy Grant, Carroll Thompson, The Cookie Crew, Jazzie B, Ms Dynamite, and Dizzie Rascal all followed the same guidelines," he said.The free exhibition is part of Destination City, the City of London Corporation's growth strategy for the Square Mile as a world-leading business and leisure location.The organisation, which also manages other cultural and heritage institutions including Tower Bridge, Guildhall Art Gallery and The London Archives, invests more than £130m every year in heritage and cultural activities in the UK.Chris Hayward, from the City of London Corporation, said: "With its many styles and charismatic performers, Black Sound London will strike a chord with everyone who enjoys listening to British black music and is keen to find out how LP sales in niche record shops, air time on pirate radio stations, and community spaces played a key role in its success."The exhibition runs until 19 July.