The exhibition opens on Saturday, 18 April 2026 at East Bank in London’s Queen Elizabeth Olympic Park.
Upcoming exhibition The Music is Black: A British Story will celebrate the voices, talent and stories of Black British music and its global impact over the past 125 years.
It also charts the development of Black British genres, including lovers rock, Brit funk, 2 tone, jungle, drum ‘n’ bass, trip-hop, UK garage, grime and more.
Designed as a multi-sensory experience, visitors will move through four themed acts supported by sound and multimedia installations, alongside 200+ objects from 1900 to the present day. The display includes 60 new acquisitions entering the V&A collection for the first time, from instruments and technologies to photography, fashion, personal items and artworks.
Objects on show include Winifred Atwell’s piano, Samuel Coleridge-Taylor’s early 1900s musical batons, and Jme’s Super Nintendo and Mario Paint, used in early music experiments before co-founding Boy Better Know with Skepta. The exhibition also includes clothing worn by Little Simz, Dame Shirley Bassey and Skin – the first Black woman to headline Glastonbury in 1997 – as well as photographs of Kemistry and Storm, Mis-Teeq and Skepta.
Structured in four parts – Origins of Music, ‘Great’ Britain: 1900–1969, British-Born Black Music, and The British Sound Of, which looks at Black British music today and its future – the exhibition moves from historical foundations through to contemporary sounds.
A partnership with BBC Music will provide access to archival materials and a related season of content across BBC platforms. The opening also marks the start of activity leading into The Music Is Black Festival, planned for summer 2026, with East Bank partners including the BBC, Sadler’s Wells East, UAL’s London College of Fashion and UCL East.
“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,” said Jacqueline Springer, Curator of The Music Is Black: A British Story and Curator of Africa and Diaspora Performance at the V&A. 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.”
V&A East Museum opens on 18 April 2026, joining sister venue V&A East Storehouse, which opened in May 2025.
Get your tickets now at the V&A website.