BEYOND THE Bassline kicks off at the British Library next month.
The first major exhibition to document the 500-year musical journey of African and Caribbean people in Britain, it was inspired by the British Library’s sound archive and explores the people, spaces and genres that have transformed the landscape of British music.
Traversing musical genres, from classical, gospel and jazz through to reggae, jungle and afroswing, Beyond the Bassline charts the influence of Black British musicians, creatives and entrepreneurs on popular music since the 16th-century.
It also considers the role emerging technologies and the internet have played in creating, listening to and sharing music.
The exhibition spotlights the spaces – physical, digital and symbolic – that have cultivated creative expression and inspired a number of Black British music genres, from The Reno in Manchester, Bristol’s Bamboo Club, Scottish club night The Reggae Klub and The Four Aces in London, to carnivals, community centres and record shops across the country.
To accompany Beyond the Bassline there will be a programme of public events, including live performances, club takeovers by No Signal (April 26), Touching Bass (May 3 and July 12) and Queer Bruk (June 21), as well as in conversation events with eminent singer-songwriters Eddy Grant (April 26) and Joan Armatrading (June 18), with more to be revealed.
Visitors to Beyond the Bassline will also get to see a new, specially commissioned film.
‘Iwoyi: within the echo’, is a five-channel 10-minute film and sound installation exploring the radical potential of Black British music to manifest reparative futures.
Directed by Tayo Rapoport and Rohan Ayinde in collaboration with the South London-based musical movement and curatorial platform Touching Bass, the film is produced by NOIR and has an original score made by Melo-Zed.
New soundscapes, artworks and films exploring Black British identity through the medium of music feature throughout the exhibition and have been created by community-rooted, youth-led group Jukebox Collective, charitable enterprise and network Rastafari Movement UK Wellbeing, bespoke loudspeaker system Friendly Pressure and literary activist, theatre maker and published writer, Khadijah Ibrahiim.
Curated by Dr Aleema Gray at the British Library in collaboration with Mykaell Riley at the University of Westminster, Beyond the Bassline follows a three-year partnership to research, foreground and reposition six centuries of African musical contributions to the UK.
Dr Aleema Gray, lead curator of Beyond the Bassline at the British Library, said: “The exhibition represents a timely opportunity to broaden our understanding of Black British music and situate it within a historical conversation.
“Black British music is more than a soundtrack. It has formed part of an expansive cultural industry that transformed British culture.”
Associate Professor Mykaell Riley, guest curator of Beyond the Bassline at the British Library and Director of The Black Music Research Unit at the University of Westminster, said: “This is British history, this is popular music.
“And the exhibition is not an end point but the beginning of a new positioning of Black British music, within academic research and high art spaces.”
There will be panel displays and events at public libraries across the UK, arranged through the Living Knowledge Network, with each library’s collection, regional connections and local music scene at the core, to help tell a national story about Black music in Britain.
Beyond the Bassline tickets are on general sale
(beyondthebassline.seetickets.com/) and cost £15 with concessions available.
There will be Pay What You Can days on the first Wednesday of every month.
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