{"id":14192,"date":"2026-04-30T10:58:52","date_gmt":"2026-04-30T17:58:52","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/?p=14192"},"modified":"2026-05-19T11:04:25","modified_gmt":"2026-05-19T18:04:25","slug":"the-music-is-black-a-british-story","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/2026\/04\/30\/the-music-is-black-a-british-story\/","title":{"rendered":"&#8220;The Music is Black: A British Story&#8221;"},"content":{"rendered":"\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\"><em><a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfi.fr\/en\/podcasts\/spotlight-on-africa\/20260428-from-reggae-to-grime-how-black-music-became-synonymous-with-a-british-sound-spotlight-on-africa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">from RFI France<\/a><\/em><\/p>\n\n\n\n<h1 class=\"wp-block-heading\">From reggae to grime: how black music became synonymous with a British sound<\/h1>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">As a major exhibition retracing how music from\u00a0Africa, the Caribbean and North America merged to make a distinctly British sound opens in London,\u00a0Spotlight on Africa looks at a century of black music in the diaspora.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">By <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfi.fr\/en\/author\/melissa-chemam\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Melissa Chemam<\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n<figure class=\"wp-block-embed is-type-video is-provider-youtube wp-block-embed-youtube wp-embed-aspect-9-16 wp-has-aspect-ratio\"><div class=\"wp-block-embed__wrapper\">\n<iframe loading=\"lazy\" title=\"Insight into the black British music exhibition at London&#039;s new V&amp;A East museum \u2022 RFI English\" width=\"563\" height=\"1000\" src=\"https:\/\/www.youtube.com\/embed\/ojPTZhnKJ_A?feature=oembed\"  allow=\"accelerometer; autoplay; clipboard-write; encrypted-media; gyroscope; picture-in-picture; web-share\" referrerpolicy=\"strict-origin-when-cross-origin\" allowfullscreen><\/iframe>\n<\/div><\/figure>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">V&amp;A East, the latest offshoot of the world-renowned Victoria &amp; Albert Museum, opened in Stratford \u2013 the area regenerated by London&#8217;s 2012 Olympic Games \u2013 on 18 April.&nbsp;<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">Its inaugural exhibition, entitled &#8220;The Music is Black: A British Story&#8221;, charts the rise of\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfi.fr\/en\/tag\/black-music\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">black music<\/a>\u00a0in the UK, from early drumbeats brought over from Africa to the present day, in which African and Afro-Caribbean music reflect British multiculturalism.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">From\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfi.fr\/en\/tag\/africa\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Africa<\/a>\u00a0via the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfi.fr\/en\/tag\/caribbean\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">Caribbean<\/a>\u00a0and North America, the contribution of musicians of African descent still resonates in the\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfi.fr\/en\/tag\/united-kingdom\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">United Kingdom<\/a>\u00a0\u2013 from reggae to rap and\u00a0<a href=\"https:\/\/www.londonmuseum.org.uk\/blog\/grime-music-from-the-corner-to-the-mainstream\/\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">grime<\/a>, a contemporary black British musical genre born in East London, which has allowed young people to create a sense of belonging, while connecting to a global audience.<\/p>\n\n\n\n<p class=\"wp-block-paragraph\">[ <a href=\"https:\/\/www.rfi.fr\/en\/podcasts\/spotlight-on-africa\/20260428-from-reggae-to-grime-how-black-music-became-synonymous-with-a-british-sound-spotlight-on-africa\" target=\"_blank\" rel=\"noreferrer noopener\">click to continue reading at RFI<\/a> ]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"<p>from RFI France From reggae to grime: how black music became synonymous with a British sound As a major exhibition retracing how music from\u00a0Africa, the Caribbean and North America merged to make a distinctly British sound opens in London,\u00a0Spotlight on Africa looks at a century of black music in the diaspora. By Melissa Chemam V&amp;A [&hellip;]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_et_pb_use_builder":"off","_et_pb_old_content":"","_et_gb_content_width":"","footnotes":""},"categories":[3],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-14192","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-culture-art"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14192","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/1"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=14192"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14192\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":14193,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/14192\/revisions\/14193"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=14192"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=14192"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bigjimindustries.com\/wordpress\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=14192"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}