Museum says The Music is Black is part of a push to reposition scene as central to UK’s cultural history
Jacqueline Springer is standing in the middle of the V&A’s new exhibition space looking wistfully at a pair of drainpipe trousers, a tailored suit jacket and a porkpie hat, which create the unmistakable silhouette of Pauline Black, lead singer of the 2 Tone group the Selector.
Springer is the curator of the V&A East’s inaugural exhibition, The Music is Black, a landmark survey of Black British music, which opens this weekend. It starts with the early drumbeats in Africa and takes us right up to the latest innovations in pop and drill via jungle, grime, garage and two-tone.
Over a three-year period, the former journalist turned academic and curator has amassed 200 items, including many permanent acquisitions, although some – such as Pauline Black’s outfit – remain tantalisingly out of reach. “She wants them back,” Springer says in mock frustration.
Despite some of the items being here temporarily, Springer hopes the show is part of a lasting change, not just in terms of which artefacts find their way into collections but how Black British music is seen. “Institutionally, it’s an endorsement,” she says. “The V&A has recognised that black music is worthy of this kind of coverage.”
