​Barbican Music Library celebrates 100 years of Black British music with exhibition

An exhibition celebrating 100 years of Black British music has opened up at the Barbican Music Library.

Black Sound London explores a century of Black British music, from the 1919 arrival of the Southern Syncopated Orchestra in London from the US, to today’s stars.

The exhibition looks at genres that have “powered British Black music from the margins to global stages”, from jazz to lovers’ rock, jungle to grime, and much more across a 100-year timeline.

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Black Sound London went on show at the Barbican Library on March 10, and will continue to be displayed until July 19. The exhibition is co-curated by Lloyd Bradley and Scott Leonard.

“Too often in this country, Black cultural heritage is 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,” Scott Leonard told the BBC.

He continued: "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."

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The exhibition will also highlight the artists who “created their own platforms, audiences, and spaces, often without mainstream support”, also inviting the public to contribute by asking them to share their stories.

Two “heritage collection days” will go ahead at the library where members of the public will be interviewed and have an item related to their memory 3D-scanned (per the BBC).

Black Sound London includes sound installations, magazine covers, vintage mixtapes, fly-posted walls, and more across a span of 100 years.

Find out more about Black Sound London here.

[Via BBC]

Gemma Ross is Mixmag's Associate Digital Editor, follow her on Twitter